Disposing of old computer

Daisies

I have an old PC, which I haven't used for about 4 years. It does still work, but isn't very fast (it was built by a housemate's boyfriend out of bits from older computers and new bits). I want to give it either to a local charity, which has several shops where they do electrical testing before selling on, or put it onto Freecycle/Dontdumpthat.

But I want to make sure anything personal on there is securely wiped before I hand it over. There's nothing recent on there, but there is older bank, addresses, personal job related stuff etc on there which I don't want falling into the wrong hands. Does anyone know of any useful resources to wipe the details for me?

eaglesaver

Anyone with a little bit of knowledge can retrieve data from even a formatted Disk Drive. My advice would be to remove the Hard Disk Drive and smash it with a hammer / soak it in water etc and dispose of it (even these arent foolproof methods).

I really wouldnt advise ever giving away a PC with a Disk Drive still in it!

j_davies

If your going to give a PC away use DBan no need for any hammer then

crompton

even that has been proven not to work though. I would, open command prompt or dos. Type "format C:" (minus quotes) press enter. Once this is complete take your hammer to it, then soak it in water.

I understand you are trying to do a noble thing by giving it to charity but dont bother. There was a case about a year ago, where people gave computers (which they wiped) to charity to send to nigeria etc. and the nigerians who received the computers were using professional software to retrieve credit card info etc. or bank information, statements etc.

j_davies

crompton wrote:

even that has been proven not to work though. I would, open command prompt or dos. Type "format C:" (minus quotes) press enter. Once this is complete take your hammer to it, then soak it in water.

You would have to do this from A:\ so you would be using a switch and command like this A:\format c:/s you cannot format a PC from a OS in use so a bootable floppy would have to be used.


DBan does work as you would of know this if you had read the link info, and have you got a link to the infomation that proves it not to work?

From DBan

Darik's Boot and Nuke ("DBAN") is a self-contained boot floppy 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.

DBAN is a means of ensuring due diligence in computer recycling, a way of preventing identity theft if you want to sell a computer, and a good way to totally clean a Microsoft Windows installation of viruses and spyware. DBAN prevents or thoroughly hinders all known techniques of hard disk forensic analysis.

johnmc

You need to "shred" the drive to overwrite all sections with digital zeroes.

There are a number of utilities out there that will do it, such as boot & nuke or Kill Disk advertised on PC World (magazine !!!!!) web site.

You should also look at the PC Utilities (magazine) web site for FREE disk scrubbers.

hbl_2

"Eraser" is a good piece of software that does much the same thing. Since DBAN can be booted from another drive, it can shred the contents of the disc without impediment because the hard drive wont be in use. A fresh install of windows (or other OS) would then bring it back to speed.

Choose the most hardcore setting (is Gutman 35 passes?) and let it run overnight (perhaps longer). Although if you really are worried, destroy the drive. The receipient of the PC can pick up a decent size new one for £40 tops. Which might be preferable if they want their own data to last any time at all!

j_davies

hbl wrote:

"Eraser" is a good piece of software that does much the same thing. Since DBAN can be booted from another drive, it can shred the contents of the disc without impediment because the hard drive wont be in use. A fresh install of windows (or other OS) would then bring it back to speed.

DBan is used froma Bootable ISO image file so the HDD wont be in use either.

:beer:

Daisies

Thanks everyone, I'll look into those when I have a moment!

My plan is to hand it over to someone who can use it themselves (ie school kid using for homework) or something similar, rather than giving it to a big charity recycling thing, as I had read about computers not being wiped properly when given to things like that.

I'm not sure how much use the personal data on there would be to someone (it's at least 4 years old, and I've moved house 3 times since so any bank or address stuff is very out of date). I just don't want anyone getting their paws on stuff they can use. But equally I don't want it to end up in landfill!