What should I do before I sell my PC?
 

Hi all, as part of my transition to broadband, I have bought a new PC to replace my ageing 650Mhz Pentium 3. I will probably end up giving the old PC to my brother, or flogging it on ebay for tuppence if he doesnt want it.

So, whats the best way to go about removing all traces of me from the hard drive so I can sell it without worrying about the new owner finding my passwords/internet accounts/porn :) etc? Do I need to reinstall windows, or if not what should I delete? Are there any programs which will do it all for you?

Thanks.

Hiya

Try this http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/ it is free and should remove all the right stuff.


Mike :ok:

atco-matic,

Best way to keep your personal data from getting into other people's hands would be to keep the Hard Drive and sell the comp with a new Hard Drive.

You can always physically destroy your old Hard Drive, or just keep it as a backup in a safe place.

Take Care,

Richard

It might be an idea to keep your old PC. About 6 months ago, we got a virus which got past the firewall (Symantec) and the other bells and buzzers I paid a lot of money for, but our local PC repair shop had the newer PC for 12 days as they had a backlog. I was able to istall the broadband software into the old one in minutes, hook it up and away I went.

I'm glad I kept the old PC now, I just carried on as normal.

Hi guys, thanks for the info... will try downloading that program I think. Don't think I can justify replacing the hard drive on such an old PC!!! Thanks anyway.

According to a techie friend, there's no such thing as a blank hard drive unless it's never been used. There are a number of techniques and programs for retrieving data from the HDD. I just read about 2 of them: ENCASE and DIGIT, which the police use.
So I would remove your HDD and either destroy it or keep it in a safe place.

If you use a reputable HDD wipe program (such as that suggested by mikedurward) you should be safe enough. Recovering data fragments from a properly wiped drive requires fancy software and often hardware that casual snoops won't have (it's expensive).

Unless you're a government spook in your spare time don't get TOO paranoid.

PS: A simple format is most emphatically NOT safe!

Indeed.... on a reformatted drive all information is perfectly intact.

You just cant access it in the normal way, so it just looks empty!!

I use BCwipe, which writes over the entire hard drive 37 (Ithink) times to ensure absolute unreadability.

Low-level format your hard-drive several times. (easy with SCSI because the host adapter usually has this ability built-in, but should be easy enough on IDE drives as well).

For total destruction, a very powerful pulsed magnetic field will totally scramble the HDD to the point where it may even become unwritable ever again.

Physical destruction of the HDD means opening the case and smashing the heads/platters with an axe/sledgehammer/crowbar/etc. Buyer will have to acquire and install new HDD.

Removing HDD and keeping as souvenir, backup/paperweight also a very good option. A spare HDD is always handy.

This was certainly the method of choice at my former, deeply paranoid, employer. It was quite fun too - good stress relief :)

rewriting the whole disk 37 times should be sufficient but do note that it will take a LONG time. Probably leave it over night and then some, obviously depending on the speed of the disk and the size of the hard drive.

I found a way of ensuring no one can ever access the data on a PC, I let the kids use the machine while I was away :{

Destroying HDDs instead of secure wiping them and passing them on to someone who needs 'em.

Sillly and wasteful, unless your org has some very smelly secrets.

Retrieving scraps of data from a secure wiped drive is tedous and expensive - you'd better be sure it's worth it.