Wiping a company laptop

Silvertabby

Mr S (who used to deal with Armed Forces security data) says the only sure way of deleting a hard drive is to:

1. Remove the hard drive.
2. Place it on a solid surface, preferably a concrete floor.
3. Pick up a heavy hammer.....

But not in your case, as the laptop and data belongs to your old company's Receiver.

Neil_Jones

Indeed, physically destroying the drive guarantees the removal of all data.  Has the side effect however if you not being able to use it afterwards.  It is good fun though for a while but if you physically dismantle the drive first and then whack it, the platters will shatter and the edges are sharp so...

But of course if it still belongs to a company despite it having gone under, I'd suggest putting it in writing to the administrators/receivers that you have this laptop with its asset/tracking number xxxxx, do you want it back.  If they write back and say no, you can keep it (unlikely but you never know), then you can do what you want with it.

debitcardmayhem

Charge them £10 per day for storage, it's up to them to collect assuming you have tried to return beforehand.

a

mksysb said:

Linux does use trim.

You could be right, but was said (by default?) it did not, but things do change over time. I actually got the information from a forensic drive recovery course, rather than my own experience. That is how I know about hdd erasure too, and when companies quote ssd recovery they actually mostly mean fixing broken connectors on usb flash drives - 90% of the time, but sometimes SD cards can be recoverable, but ssd are dead ducks unless it is a power rail or similar component failure.

mksysb

a said:

mksysb said:

Linux does use trim.

You could be right, but was said (by default?) it did not, but things do change over time. I actually got the information from a forensic drive recovery course, rather than my own experience. That is how I know about hdd erasure too, and when companies quote ssd recovery they actually mostly mean fixing broken connectors on usb flash drives - 90% of the time, but sometimes SD cards can be recoverable, but ssd are dead ducks unless it is a power rail or similar component failure.

Yes, not all distros have by default, but it's gradually rolling out on a lot of them now, and easy to enable on those that don't.

A_Lert

If the laptop's UEFI is password-locked, but the drive is removable, then pulling it out and connecting it to another PC will enable you to wipe it. Which means you don't have to worry about data getting in the wrong hands at least.