Opps! Erasing hard drive question?

[Guest]

Sorry, I posted this in the performance and maintence folder and it probably
should have been here!

We're wanting to sell our computer and were wondering how we can erase all
our private information off of the computer. It's Windows XP and the
computer is a Compaq. I've heard that there is software that will wipe off
everything completely. Would appreciate any help, as we've never sold one
before. We'd heard of people deleting everything, but yet there are places
that your personal information can still turn up on the hard drive!!

Thanks!

 

[Ken Blake]

In

Sorry, I posted this in the performance and maintence folder
and it
probably should have been here!

We're wanting to sell our computer and were wondering how we
can
erase all our private information off of the computer. It's
Windows
XP and the computer is a Compaq. I've heard that there is
software
that will wipe off everything completely. Would appreciate any
help,
as we've never sold one before. We'd heard of people deleting
everything, but yet there are places that your personal
information
can still turn up on the hard drive!!

It all depends on how paranoid you are (and how valuable to
anyone else is the data on your computer). For the vast majority
of people, simply reformatting the drive is good enough.

Yes, drives can be unformatted, and deleted files can be
undeleted. But it's a rare person who will buy a used computer
and instead of using it for his own uses, will work hard at
trying to find your data. Not only is it unlikely that he will
want to, but it's also unlikely that he would know how.

But if you are worried about this possibility, there are several
programs available that overwrite everything on your drive with
zeros. Most of them even let you do that overwriting multiple
times.

Overwriting with zeros multiple times substantially decreases the
risk of anyone recovering your data, but it's important to
realize that even that is not perfect; there are sophisticated
data recovery techniques that can sometimes recover even such
overwritten data. That's why the US governemnt doesn't rely on
such techniques for really critical data, but physically melts
the drive in a furnace.

If it were me, I'd just format the drive, but the choice is
yours.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Sorry, I posted this in the performance and maintence folder and it probably
should have been here!

We're wanting to sell our computer and were wondering how we can erase all
our private information off of the computer. It's Windows XP and the
computer is a Compaq. I've heard that there is software that will wipe off
everything completely. Would appreciate any help, as we've never sold one
before. We'd heard of people deleting everything, but yet there are places
that your personal information can still turn up on the hard drive!!

Thanks!

To protect your personal information and data from any future users
of average skills, you should, at the very least, format the hard drive
and reinstall only the OS and those applications whose licenses are to
be included in the transfer. If you wish to do a more thorough job of
protecting your personal data, WipeDrive 2.2.1
(http://www.accessdata.com/Product07_Overview.htm?ProductNum=07) meets
U.S. DoD standards for securely cleaning surplus unclassified hard
drives, and could be used before formatting and reinstalling the OS and
applications.


--

Bruce Chambers

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You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH

 

[Johnny Lingo]

In


It all depends on how paranoid you are (and how valuable to anyone else is
the data on your computer). For the vast majority of people, simply
reformatting the drive is good enough.

Yes, drives can be unformatted, and deleted files can be undeleted. But
it's a rare person who will buy a used computer and instead of using it
for his own uses, will work hard at trying to find your data. Not only is
it unlikely that he will want to, but it's also unlikely that he would
know how.

But if you are worried about this possibility, there are several programs
available that overwrite everything on your drive with zeros. Most of them
even let you do that overwriting multiple times.

Overwriting with zeros multiple times substantially decreases the risk of
anyone recovering your data, but it's important to realize that even that
is not perfect; there are sophisticated data recovery techniques that can
sometimes recover even such overwritten data. That's why the US governemnt
doesn't rely on such techniques for really critical data, but physically
melts the drive in a furnace.

If it were me, I'd just format the drive, but the choice is yours.

A couple of years ago, I worked as a civilian contractor for the DoD as a
Desktop Support Technician. The only thing we did to erase hard drives was
using a program that wrote 1's and zeros to the entire drive. This program
wrote the entire drive with the ones and zeros 10 times.