How to earse everything from a laptop?

Chaotic_Forces

Basically I have to return the laptop to PCWorld to get it repaired. Now I've backed up everything I wanted. I already have a cd to reinstall the OS (windows 7 32/64 bit*) and the tech support guy told me to use it.

*basically I have 64 on my system now but the cd says 32. TBH I don't really give a damn about the OS, I only plan to keep this laptop till I can a new one.

I'm thinking that just going ahead and unistalling the OS/deleting the partition and making a new one would work, at least it did when I had windows XP on my desktop.

Should I just do that or try something like DBAN?

ferguson

Chaotic_Forces wrote: »

Basically I have to return the laptop to PCWorld to get it repaired. Now I've backed up everything I wanted. I already have a cd to reinstall the OS (windows 7 32/64 bit*) and the tech support guy told me to use it.

*basically I have 64 on my system now but the cd says 32. TBH I don't really give a damn about the OS, I only plan to keep this laptop till I can a new one.

I'm thinking that just going ahead and unistalling the OS/deleting the partition and making a new one would work, at least it did when I had windows XP on my desktop.

Should I just do that or try something like DBAN?

a full fromat? Note full. i did a quick format on an xp laptop and while all the my documents/email were gone some prigrams were left as far as i recall. Be aware that just cos i did not see my docs that they were 'gone' or could not be retrieved. can you remove the hard drive before giving it back?

tricky D

Even a full format will still mean files can be recovered. Use something like Eraser from http://eraser.heidi.ie/ which overwrites 7 times which is up to DoD grade. Haven't used DBAN but it looks good too.

sellerbarry

Going to some lenghts to get rid of data. What is it BTW?;)

Overheal

sellerbarry wrote: »

Going to some lenghts to get rid of data. What is it BTW?;)

Access codes to the Colonial Defense mainframe

Porn

Pirated music and videos

Internal Company memos, Customer information

Unfiled patents, Unpublished art, Thesis

Family photos

Plans to construct a death star


The point being it doesn't really matter what the data is.

Full format programs are good. It depends on how much free time you think these PC World hourlies have to scour your drive for miscellaneous photos and documents. Drive-Scouring can take days, literally, to recover files from raw 1s and 0s on the hard drive, without a Master File Table, which is destroyed when you format and repartition. And even when files are recovered, they're unsorted, and a complete mess.

Chaotic_Forces

I don't know if the laptop needs to replace fully or if it's just a repair. Either way the last thing I want is a bunch of people seeing my stuff.

I'm not sure how it works, just that untill the deleted data is over written then it's still there. I mean I do have to bring it down to them on monday so I'd have all day tomorrow to use whatever to erase it.

It's not that I don't trust PCWorld's techies I just don't want them to end up giving me a new one and then fixing the old laptop and selling it off as a second hand one and some random guy has my info.

ferguson

Chaotic_Forces wrote: »

I don't know if the laptop needs to replace fully or if it's just a repair. Either way the last thing I want is a bunch of people seeing my stuff.

I'm not sure how it works, just that untill the deleted data is over written then it's still there. I mean I do have to bring it down to them on monday so I'd have all day tomorrow to use whatever to erase it.

It's not that I don't trust PCWorld's techies I just don't want them to end up giving me a new one and then fixing the old laptop and selling it off as a second hand one and some random guy has my info.

can you not remove the hard drive or read about Sdelete or use sdelete

Or could you encrypt the hard drive or do they need access to it

Chaotic_Forces

Ah I don't want to/can't I don't think. I mean it is under warranty so I assume tinkering with it is a bad idea.

I'm actually just tempted to reinstall and leave it at that.

Does anyone know if PCWorld are known to go poking? The problems with the laptop are purely on the hardware end only.

wolfric

If it's a laptop leave the hard drive in. Most often that voids the warrenty but it depends on the laptop. You're able to do whatever you want to the hard drive logically (as in wipe it, reinstall what you want etc). I say just leave dban running over night. Don't matter the reasons or what other people think, it's just good practice.

I've heard and seen myself IT repair guys just having a browse through your files while they're fixing the pc. If you had someone in your house, would you really be happy with them flicking through your personal stuff while they're on a break?

Wipe it when you get it back if you're confident you can get it to work alright. I've also heard of people putting on trojans and breaking the computer again so they bring it back. Even if not intentional, they could be just browsing the web themselves and get hit before they run patches.

Dban is simple to use. Burn your self a copy, stick it in and reboot.

duckysauce

big brother is out to get ya:eek: