Erasing Data from an old PC

[Jim Rusert]

I have a 7 year old PC that I formerly used in my business that I'm planning to donate to a charitable organization. I am currently running a DOD system wipe but how can I be sure that personal info is cleaned from the hard drive?

Any ideas, or, am I being paranoid (more so than usual?

[calishootr]

i wastalking with a techno geek friend of mine and mentioned register edit, and he went pale....told me that unless i really didnt want anything on my HD or in my puter to go ahead and hit delete in register edit and its GONE....

[outerlimits]

12 gauge...better than DOD wipe

[MarkCO]

For the price of HDs, take it out and put a new one in. You can get 80 to 250 GB HDs for $30 to $40 from Newegg and TigerDirect.

[Jeff686]

i wastalking with a techno geek friend of mine and mentioned register edit, and he went pale....told me that unless i really didnt want anything on my HD or in my puter to go ahead and hit delete in register edit and its GONE....

You either misunderstood him, or he was talking out of his a$$.

You can really mess up your computer by messing with the registry, but it won't prevent people from retrieving data from the HDD.

[Nik Habicht]

I watched a computer geek do a wipe with a 12 gauge slug once.....

That should do the trick for anyone short of Forensic computer recovery specialists....

[MarkCO]

I watched a computer geek do a wipe with a 12 gauge slug once.....

That should do the trick for anyone short of Forensic computer recovery specialists....

You'd be amazed what they can get...I'd go with several rounds of buckshot...then cut it up with a torch!

[mgood]

I watched a computer geek do a wipe with a 12 gauge slug once.....

That should do the trick for anyone short of Forensic computer recovery specialists....

You'd be amazed what they can get...I'd go with several rounds of buckshot...then cut it up with a torch!

A friend of mine who used to work around sensitive information in the military said that;

1 They wiped and then wrote over the hard drive multiple times.

2 Then they removed the drive and physically wiped it across a big magnet.

3 Then they ran it through a shredder. (Had a special scredder for this that chopped up the metal case and everything.)

4 Then they burned the shreds of what was left.

I don't think anyone is going to get anything off of that drive. (I don't think he was kidding either.)

[Mark K]

I was in Army Intel for 20 years. There was a time that you could not remove a hard drive from a classified area w/o taking the HD apart and literally sanding the magnetic service off the HD plates.

Now, a good DOD/NSA level erase program will do the trick. These level of programs will write binary 1 and 0 to each bit on the HD over and over. Most erasing just deletes the file name, but the data is still there. I work IT in business right now, and they are just as thorough (or more) in making sure that all data is unrecoverable from HDs.

Destroying the HD is just foolish, when you can get freeware to erase your data.

Mark K.

Edited December 13, 2010 by Mark K

[spanky]

i wastalking with a techno geek friend of mine and mentioned register edit, and he went pale....told me that unless i really didnt want anything on my HD or in my puter to go ahead and hit delete in register edit and its GONE....

Yeah, that's completely wrong.

[AWLAZS]

Let my kids use it for a week.

[Rob Boudrie]

i wastalking with a techno geek friend of mine and mentioned register edit, and he went pale....told me that unless i really didnt want anything on my HD or in my puter to go ahead and hit delete in register edit and its GONE....

I think what he meant was "registry editing can be dangerous to your data if you don't know what you are doing", not "registry editing is a way to securely erase a drive".

Formatting a drive is not a good way to securely erase it. One of many freeware tools that will do the job is the free Microsoft Sysinternals command "sdelete" (google for it).

[Graham Smith]

I have a 7 year old PC that I formerly used in my business that I'm planning to donate to a charitable organization. I am currently running a DOD system wipe but how can I be sure that personal info is cleaned from the hard drive?

A secure wipe overwrites the data. Short of thermite, it's one of the most effective ways of cleaning the drive. SDelete from SysInternals is a free program that will do just that.

To wipe the entire hard drive, you will need a boot disk like a floppy or CD with a program designed to wipe an entire drive (which can take quite some time).

[BigTinVA]

Try Darik's Boot and Nuke http://www.dban.org/

Darik's Boot and Nuke ("DBAN") is a self-contained boot disk that securely wipes the hard disks of most computers. DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect, which makes it an appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction.

[davidwiz]

Oops, double post.

Edited December 15, 2010 by davidwiz

[davidwiz]

With hard drives so in expensive (i.e., you can get a 1 TB drive for under $150), you should destroy the drive. Remove the platter from the drive and either shred it or cut it up with scissors.

[GrumpyOne]

One word.....FIRE!

[CocoBolo]

I just got rid of about 30 or 40 old hard drives. I use a 2# shop hammer and beat the bits right out of the platter. Its kind of fun actually. Now if some Geekie genius wants to try and read what reamains well have fun. I also wave my magic wand over it, that is a big magnet on a stick and it'll make your ferroious oxide stand on end, I forgot if thats a 1 or a 0.

I might just try my plasma cutter next time.

You don't want any personal data to escape in that old drive.

Edited December 15, 2010 by CocoBolo

[Flatland Shooter]

Try Darik's Boot and Nuke http://www.dban.org/

Darik's Boot and Nuke ("DBAN") is a self-contained boot disk that securely wipes the hard disks of most computers. DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect, which makes it an appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction.

Thanks for the link. I'm have a 4 year old laptop running XP Pro that's been slowing down. I'm doing the research on how to wipe the harddrive and reload the operating system.

Its a real b**** being technology impaired when so much depends on bits and bytes.

Bill

[Jim Rusert]

Thanks everyone.

I'm thinking about the 12 gauge followed by the BBQ method.

I appreciate everyone's input.

--Jim Rusert

[Jim Rusert]

I'll try the DBAN program. What's the worst thing that could happen? I could lose everything on my Hard Drive, COOL!

[D.Hayden]

Found this link.. has links to a number of software providers:

http://deq.mt.gov/recycle/Electronics/destroyingdata.mcpx

[Guest eddieanton]

When it comes to dealing with the old computer, whether you are selling, donating or recycling it, you should be most concerned about your personal information. If you sell your computer, you may want to maintain a software program on your computer so that it more valuable to the next owner. In this case, your best option is to "clean up" the personal data off the drive safely remove such a file eraser program.

[AndaQuarter]

+1 on the DBAN recommendation, it is simple to use and offer several options for the erase/overwrite routine.

You can include the system and program disks when you donate so it will still be of value to someone and still be protected.

Good luck!

[Erik S.]

Yep, for most home (and even some business) use, DBAN is sufficient. And, by the way, what mgood said about how military/DOD destroys hard drives is completely true only step 5 is pour water on the ashes. NO JOKE!

Even with DBAN, there is still some magnetic resonance of the data previously written, but the chances of Joe the Identity Theif getting his greasy hands on it are greatly diminished even if he had the right software. Most of the data would probably be corrupt if he was able to get anything. Some people go ape-o on data destruction for no reason....take the necessary precautions and leave it at that. Your best bet is just pull the hard drive and keep it forever, like you do your tax records. That is the safest of all.

Edited January 12, 2011 by Erik S.