Data Protection with laptop

funkmonkey_08

Hi All, Recently I dropped my laptop down the stairs at home so I claimed on our house insurance for the damaged laptop. The screen smashed and I had no way of knowing what other damage was done. My IT department at work took the hard drive out to recover my personal data, which includes all family photos, finance info and some work data. Now they have managed to get the data off for me and have wiped the hard drive clean to protect me against any kind of potential fraud by giving my data to an unknown source. Now my insurance company are going mad after thay have inspected the laptop as the hard drive has been wiped clean. They are threatening to send the laptop back and not complete the claim? can they do that, we have been with this insurance company for years and always paid and not made any claims. surley they understand that I have to protect myself from potential fraud by cleaning the data off.

What do I do know? are they within their rights to have all of my personal data? help....

Andy_L

I'm guessing that as the hard drive has been wiped they can't get the machine to run so can't tell if just the screen is broken, which could possibly be replaced, or the whole machine is knackered & you need a new laptop

Stephen_Leak

As an IT tech' in a school, I am learning all about damaged laptops.

I am a bit surprised that, after reformatting the disc to really erase any data, your people didn't re-install Windows. Even if the laptop screen is dead, you can usually still connect an external monitor. OTOH, if all they were working on was the drive connected to another computer ...

jamesd

funkmonkey_08, I'm unimpressed by the apparent level of technical skill being shown by whoever is examining it. Them not having a suitably capable person or company doing the work of examining the computer is not a reason to reject your claim.

They could just plug in an alternative hard drive with operating system if they want to check the rest of the system. Or copy one onto the erased drive. Or ask the original maker to check it for them. It's a trivial problem for a professional PC repair and servicing company.

Not having an installed operating system would reduce the resale value if hey were to replace the screen and sell the computer but it would be grossly irresponsible to do that without them wiping the hard drive themselves, so there's no reason for it to be a problem.

Iamthesmartestmanalive

jamesd wrote: »

funkmonkey_08, I'm unimpressed by the apparent level of technical skill being shown by whoever is examining it. Them not having a suitably capable person or company doing the work of examining the computer is not a reason to reject your claim.

They could just plug in an alternative hard drive with operating system if they want to check the rest of the system. Or copy one onto the erased drive. Or ask the original maker to check it for them. It's a trivial problem for a professional PC repair and servicing company.

Not having an installed operating system would reduce the resale value if hey were to replace the screen and sell the computer but it would be grossly irresponsible to do that without them wiping the hard drive themselves, so there's no reason for it to be a problem.

To be fair the OP shouldnt have wiped the laptop completely

Im sure they wont be happy when their completely blank laptop is sent back restored but unusable

It seems complete overkill to wipe the harddrive before you know whats happening

It would have made far more sense to just delete your files

You have made it far harder to analyse the damage etc and also distingush about what is damage in the laptop and what is due to you wiping it

olly300

Iamthesmartestmanalive wrote: »

To be fair the OP shouldnt have wiped the laptop completely

The OP stated that the laptop had work data on it.

Most contracts of employment have clauses in them that make it absolutely clear that any work data should be kept confidential. Therefore the OP had to get the laptop wiped otherwise they may be in breach of their employment contract.

Im sure they wont be happy when their completely blank laptop is sent back restored but unusable

It seems complete overkill to wipe the harddrive before you know whats happening

It would have made far more sense to just delete your files

No it is not. That is the only way to ensure that the hard drive cannot be read without difficulty. The best method to ensure a hard drive can't be read at all is to physically destroy it so it can't be used again.

You have made it far harder to analyse the damage etc and also distingush about what is damage in the laptop and what is due to you wiping it

You show little knowledge of computing. All they need to do is install another operating system on the hard drive as jamesd and Stephen Leak said. That's not hard to do.

Iamthesmartestmanalive

olly300 wrote: »

You show little knowledge of computing. All they need to do is install another operating system on the hard drive as jamesd and Stephen Leak said. That's not hard to do.

But why should it be necessary?

The computer is being returned for repair as damaged, not wiped

Her IT department could have deleted the files then formatted the drive, I think its unlikely they would have went to the extent to recover files that far deleted

The insurers now have the added hassle of distinguishing what issues are due to it being wiped and that

It seems to me the OP assumed she would get a new one and it wouldnt matter and therefore had no forethought of the issues wiping it would cause

Will they be happy if the insurers replace the screen only and send it back wiped?

The fact is all the suggestions said will use more resources and that would not be necessary if she hadnt acted with a bit of overkill

egamar

Iamthesmartestmanalive wrote: »

But why should it be necessary?

Ignore this drivel. This person leaves poisonous and/or unhelpful posts all over the place.


You say this is your Household Insurance you are claiming on (and not some extended warranty from the sellers of the laptop)? Well, you've made their job a bit more difficult than maybe it needed to have been (and you aren't dealing with techies, I'm sure) , but unless the T&Cs of the insurance contract say that you must return the laptop with 'all' the data intact, you needn't. I'm pretty sure it won't even specifically mention data on hard-drives.

The issue is that the Insurers simply don't know what to do and the Customer Disservice Drone is trying to dump the problem on you. But it is NOT your problem: your techies did perhaps go a wee bit far in wiping the whole drive, but to me your argument is valid if a little stretched to meet the circumstances after the event, if you know what I mean .

Now: a couple of ways out, perhaps:

1. The long way. Let the InsCo return the laptop to you. Follow their Internal Complaints Procedure to the letter. If you don't get satisfaction complain to the Insurance Ombudsman. I have little doubt s/he will find in your favour.

2. Possibly the shorter way: Ask the InsCo to send the laptop back to you (before they lose it!). Get your nice techies to reinstall just the OS (DOS even!) and send it back to the InsCo without any of your personal data. If they find the HD is kn*ackered, and they can't reinstall the OS, then the problem is anyway solved: you tell the InsCo the HD AND the screen are kn*ckered (quite possible after a drop) - what are they going to do then? Ask you to fit a new HD? .

And yes, even if the techies hadn't wiped the disk clean, you would have been MAD to send it off to the InsCo co with any personal data on it.

Hope that helps: keep your eyes focussed on the rral issue - "the laptop is broken, it's insured, deal with it" and don't get distracted by the personal data question or the wiped HD.

jamesd

Iamthesmartestmanalive, the obstacle of a wiped hard drive is trivial and it is not prudent to send a drive that has not been security wiped to an insurer that may handle the case by selling the computer as parts. Recovering normally deleted files is a trivial data recovery exercise and does not adequately protect the information on the drive. funkmonkey_08's employer acted properly to protect the personal financial and company information on the drive.

The employer may well have a complete disk image to restore once the computer is returned, if it is. It's what I'd have done if I was them.

The insurance company appears to have incompetent people doing this work. This just isn't that technically hard to deal with.

egamar

Al_Mac wrote: »

Would you send a car to an MOT station without petrol in it and expect them to put petrol in it, so that they can perform the test?

Not a useful analogy - more like sending it without the radio, or with the A/C out of gas. Neither of those is necessary for the MOT nor is a fully installed OS with all the user's personal data* necessary to see if the screen works.

Al_Mac wrote: »

I think the answer would be no. So why would you expect someone to install windows to test a screen?

DOS? One floppy disk and 7 minutes? Oh how soon we forget (and of course some are too young even to remember!).

If the InsCo has asked the OP to send the lap top in for 'testing'/ 'inspection'/ 'examination' which is intended to be anything but "Oooh look, the screen is cracked" then they must have some competence available to know where to look for the floppy drive (or the CD drive with a bootable Dos CD).

*that's the main thrust of the OPs post, and I imagine between her and a semi-literate Customer Disservice Drone with an NVQ in Being Bloody Awkward at the InsCo's call-centre there had been a complete miscommunication.