Hundreds of computer users sell their used computer systems everyday. Why? Well, because computers systems become out-dated…everyday. Whether it be at a garage sale, on eBay or just to a friend, computers are constantly changing hands. Sometimes however, users fail to realize that when they sell their old system, they could also be selling a lot of ‘deleted’ data. For your every day computer user, it is still not common knowledge that deleting files off your system using the delete key, or through formatting your hard drive does not actually totally destroy the data within it. Most of the time this is ok, because generally speaking the person you’re selling your computer to wont have the interest or time to attempt to recover your data; but what if they do? There are plenty of software tools available on the market today that make it fairly simple to recover trashed or deleted data and for the most part it’s not overly expensive. What if by chance you sell your computer, (formatted hard drive included, or non-formatted if you’re really looking for trouble) to an identity thief looking to cash in big? The results could be devastating. In this day and age, users have to be ever more vigilant about where there data goes and who may be able to get a hold of it.
So, how can you as a computer user who’s about to sell your old system deal with this problem? There are a few ways actually. If you want to be really safe, you could physically remove your hard drive from your computer and destroy it either by crushing, melting or a variety of other extreme impact methods. It’s important to note however, that just destroying the outer shell of the drive is not enough. You MUST destroy the platters on the inside of the drive. This may require disassembling the drive before you begin your destruction. This can be a difficult, time consuming process.
Another, simpler method, involves using software which will wipe the drive based upon government data security standards. One example is “Darik’s Boot and Nuke” which is a free, open source application that will run from a floppy disk or other removable media and wipe any drives that it detects. This can take time and is not always completely fail-safe, but it is a respected method. If used properly, someone would have to be incredibly determined and have tons of time and resources in order to recover your data.
If that’s not enough for you, you could always just keep a stock pile of every hard drive from every computer you have ever owned and sold in a large vault…but that’s not really practical. Magnetization methods are also an option, but contrary to popular belief, it takes a lot more than just a couple of refrigerator magnets to destroy the data on your hard drive. In some cases, even large degaussing magnets can leave data vulnerable.
For more information check out this writeup, or just do a simple search for “hard drive sanitation”. While this all may seem like overkill, isn’t it better to be safe than sorry? In the future, look for an article on how to safely and securely shred individual files.
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