HP pavilion dv9385ea stuck on grey screen will not boot up. want to erase hard drive to sell

I bought my hp dv9000 about 5 years ago now, and it worked well for about 1 and a half years. 
Unfortunately though it has been plagued with the grey screen of death - it gets stuck on a grey screen as soon as it its turned on, and doesn't boot up. 
My wife has a similar hp which is still working well, and so this is the one we've been using to date. 
I'd now like to sell my computer, but would like to wipe the hard drive before doing so - so that the buyer will not be able to access my personal info. 
As it's stuck on a grey screen, there is no option to do anything with the computer. 
I have tried taking the hard drive out of my computer and putting it into my wife's laptop. This doesn't seem to work either - a blue screen flashes up, which is too quick for me to read, and then it asks if I would like to 1) load windows normally or 2) repair any problems first (which is recommended). If I select option 1, then the same blue screen flashes up, and then it cycles round again to the boot up screen. If I select option 2, then startup repair starts, but it is unable to repair the problem. 
I have taken my laptop to a computer specialist, who thinks its a problem with the motherboard, and unsalvageable. 
I have put it on eBay before, and there has been alot of interest in it - presumably for parts as it's been hardly used. I am reluctant to sell it though, without wiping my personal info off the hard drive. 
Any suggestions??

Make this bootable Dban cd, boot from it to wipe the hard drive.
It is an ISO file and must be burned to a CD as an image, not data. Let me know if you have problems making the disc.
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/dban/dban/dban-2.2.6/dban-2.2.6_i586.iso?r=http%3A%2F%2Fwww...

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