Don't want to be second Amir!

MsDelightful

Help!

I'm selling a laptop on ebay, having seen what happened to the now famous 'Amir' (who scammed a buyer, but then managed to leave all his dodgy !!!!!! pics and cv and bank details on the laptop he sold - sorry don't know how to do links), I'm now rather paranoid about passing my laptop on through ebay! Obviously I'm not trying to scam anyone, but I think I've deleted all my documents and pictures through the normal route - but is it really gone? How can you make sure the hardrive is systematically clean?

Second question: I'm relatively new, but don't want to use paypal having read how little protection it gives to sellers, plus high fees. However do you think with only 10 positive feedback it's wise to withdraw this option and just ask for cheque? Will no one trust me and so no one bid? Have to say if I was a buyer I'd think twice about sending some random person a cheque for £200 odd.

What else can I do to protect myself without putting off the buyer?

Moglex

There's very little that can be done that is protective of both the seller and the buyer.

Anything that makes things better for one will make them worse for the other (and hence put the other off).

And fleabay is a very bad place to sell a laptop (basically, laptops are bad news secondhand - you might have a good transaction, but if anything goes wrong it's a nightmare).

You might sell a laptop believing it to be in 100% working order, and some minor bump along the way would render it useless to the buyer. Then you have two genuine people who both think they are being shafted, and only one (at most) will come away feeling justice has been done.

lazymoezy

I can answer the first question. First of all save everything you need and then reboot the laptop. You should have the CD for it, rebooting the laptop should erase everything.

The only people who can still recover your files are specialists inc. Police, goverment etc etc.

Moglex

lazymoezy wrote:

I can answer the first question. First of all save everything you need and then reboot the laptop. You should have the CD for it, rebooting the laptop should erase everything.

The only people who can still recover your files are specialists inc. Police, goverment etc etc.

WRONG !!!

I think he means reinstall windows.

Believe me, even this will most certainly NOT delete all your files beyond recovery by anyone with a moderate knowledge of windows.

You need to get a special utility that will, after you have deleted all the files, overwrite the entire disk, several times with other data.

tomgman

can't formatting the harddrive do the trick? dont try it..it was just a query?

Moglex

tomgman wrote:

can't formatting the harddrive do the trick? dont try it..it was just a query?

No, because that just zaps the various headers and tables (unless you do a low level reformat, and if you know how to be sure you've done that, you won't need advice here).

It's a bit more secure than just reloading 'doze, but anyone who knows what they are doing can still get the data back.

lazymoezy

Yeah well it better than just selecting files and pressing delete. I never said it will be eniterly gone, nothing is ever fully deleted. I thought reinstalling windows would do the trick.

Calm down!

-MoE-

Moglex

lazymoezy wrote:

Yeah well it better than just selecting files and pressing delete. I never said it will be eniterly gone, nothing is ever fully deleted. I thought reinstalling windows would do the trick.

Calm down!

It's not a question of calmness, lazy.

You gave potentialy very damaging advice when you clearly do not know what you are talking about and it was important that anyone who saw your advice was alerted to the fact that it was completely incorrect - hence the large, bold, warning.

"Rebooting" the laptop, as you suggested is not the same as reinstalling windows.

And, you are wrong above when you say "Yeah well it better than just selecting files and pressing delete."

The directory in which the sensitive data is held may be completely unaffected by a windows install, so the effect would actually be worse than just pressing delete since the files would still be intact, in their original locations.

ac24

are you saying taht when my computer messes up and im forced to reformat without being able to back up my files i can still recover them after formatting?

MyUserNamesTaken

If I were you, I'd spend a little in order to sell this laptop. The best bet is to buy a cheapy 2.5 inch HDD and bung it in the laptop before you sell it. The only other way to be certain is to use a program like:

http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/

Most eraser programs tend to write random data over everything (1100101101001110101101001100101) which will render all information previously stored on the drive inaccessible. Basically, the drive is overwritten. If you use a proper program to do it, it will do it to a certain security level. Also, it will find data that wouldn't be touched on a windows reformat. It will find everything, in fact.

Have a search around Google for hard drive eraser programs.

Moglex

ac24 wrote:

are you saying taht when my computer messes up and im forced to reformat without being able to back up my files i can still recover them after formatting?

If you have the correct tools, there is a chance that you might be able to recover some of your files.

There are companies that specialise in this.

It can be an extremely time consuming and expensive option (depending upon how the data was lost in the first place).

The point is that you cannot be sure that your data has been obliterated without using special tools.

I'm not going into details here because these tools can defeat the tecniques the police use to catch paedophiles.

It is possible, however, that a ne-er do well could use the same tools to obtain innocent but embarrassing files from a computer you have sold.