Technological conquests and a data security question
Sunday, 29 July 2007 18:54![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
strange_complexI'm feeling pretty chuffed with myself on the technology front today. I have:
Having recently bought my laptop from Dell, I want to take advantage of their partnership with ReCOM to recycle my old desktop PC to charity. I've checked that it meets their requirements, and established what I need to do to get it collected, but obviously it's crucial to ensure that it is data-safe before it goes out of my house. So far I have:
Is there anything else I should be doing before I let someone else have it? Or is rendering what was my primary personal and work computer for a total of six years truly data-safe so difficult to do properly that I'd be better off smashing the hard-drive with a hammer and taking it to the tip?
- Finally got my DVD-video and Sky-box to talk to one another. It turned out that I'd got it all set up right in the first place, but just needed to choose the A1 channel on the DVD-video machine instead of letting it sit on channel 1.
- Convinced my BT Home Hub to supply full wireless coverage to my entire house, rather than just a 2m pool immediately around it. Those people who said that the key to doing this was changing the channel it was broadcasting on (
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dakegra first, I think, confirmed by kernowgirl's husband) were really right. Setting it to channel 6 completely transformed it from basically not really working at all to working absolutely perfectly everywhere I could want it to. Amazing.
Having recently bought my laptop from Dell, I want to take advantage of their partnership with ReCOM to recycle my old desktop PC to charity. I've checked that it meets their requirements, and established what I need to do to get it collected, but obviously it's crucial to ensure that it is data-safe before it goes out of my house. So far I have:
- Uninstalled pretty much every piece of software I ever installed on it, with the exception of harmless ones like Adobe Acrobat
- Told both IE and Firefox to clear all my personal data (passwords, browser history, favourites etc.)
- Manually deleted all internet cache files, cookies etc. just to be sure
- Wiped all my old documents, pictures and music (after copying them to my new machine, natch) and all temp files
- Emptied the Recycle bin
- Defragmented the hard drive
Is there anything else I should be doing before I let someone else have it? Or is rendering what was my primary personal and work computer for a total of six years truly data-safe so difficult to do properly that I'd be better off smashing the hard-drive with a hammer and taking it to the tip?
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no subject
Date: Sunday, 29 July 2007 18:33 (UTC)Yes. If someone really wants the data off that disk, they'll get it. Question is: how likely is it that someone wants it, and how damaging would it be to you if they did?
no subject
Date: Sunday, 29 July 2007 18:36 (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, 29 July 2007 19:01 (UTC)Just deleting what you believe to be all the data you put on it achieves very little -there will be loads of hidden files and other information tucked away in difficult to access places. Deleted data is recoverable by examining the disk directly - all deleting a file does is remove it's entry from the list of files in a directory, it doesn't remove the data from the disk.
no subject
Date: Sunday, 29 July 2007 19:37 (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, 29 July 2007 20:51 (UTC)I'm beginning to feel rather less charitable, though, having read the comments here. Maybe a hammer and the tip is the best route after all...
no subject
Date: Sunday, 29 July 2007 20:56 (UTC)Sure, if you had secrets on there you wanted to keep from MI6 (and a really determined MI6 at that), I'd recommend physical destruction of drive platters, but for pretty much everything else, DBAN suffices.
no subject
Date: Monday, 30 July 2007 07:44 (UTC)no subject
Date: Monday, 30 July 2007 08:54 (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, 29 July 2007 19:30 (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, 29 July 2007 21:56 (UTC)no subject
Date: Sunday, 29 July 2007 22:02 (UTC)no subject
Date: Monday, 30 July 2007 08:43 (UTC)no subject
Date: Monday, 30 July 2007 08:55 (UTC)no subject
Date: Monday, 30 July 2007 09:05 (UTC)no subject
Date: Monday, 30 July 2007 09:15 (UTC)Currently, the ReCOM scheme appeals because they will come to my house and take the computer away - whereas I don't have a car, so getting to the tip would mean I had to rely on a friend / my parents. But the balance would quickly shift tip-wise if I had to do much more than I already have in order to recycle safely.
no subject
Date: Monday, 30 July 2007 09:20 (UTC)no subject
Date: Monday, 30 July 2007 09:27 (UTC)no subject
Date: Monday, 30 July 2007 09:30 (UTC)Does the machine you're wiping have a 3.5" floppy drive? Some data destroyers need to be booted from floppies to work.
no subject
Date: Monday, 30 July 2007 09:35 (UTC)no subject
Date: Monday, 30 July 2007 09:40 (UTC)no subject
Date: Monday, 30 July 2007 14:17 (UTC)It looks like DBAN has a version for CDs- you should just be able to download that, stick it on a disk, boot from it and let it do its stuff- one of the great things about it being an old PC that you don't want any more is that you don't have to worry about breaking anything :)
I wouldn't bother re-installing Windows (or anything else) on it unless you fancy trying it for interests sake- the ReCom page doesn't mention having an OS, and it's probably a bit legally dodgy as Windows is technically a non-transferrable licence so you can't give it to anyone else anyway.
no subject
Date: Monday, 30 July 2007 15:26 (UTC)no subject
Date: Tuesday, 31 July 2007 23:56 (UTC)I very much doubt it's something you could ever realistically get into trouble for, but nevertheless it's there.