wiping my hard drive to donate or sell

[123364]

hello,

I have a

 http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01643518&tmp_task=prodinfoCategory&cc=us&dlc=en...

I love this system; low power consumption, muIti-tasking, fast. Our demands have increased however, and we are ready to buy a new system. My question is what steps I should be taking make sure it is ready to sale or donate. People tell to me to make sure and delete my hardrive and passwords? What does this mean, online-passwords like facebook, e-mails, and  bank accounts? Or are they only talking about actual files on the hard drive. Also, since my HP has a recovery discs system, I was wondering if running those is good enough.

Thanks ahead of time.

[erico · Accepted solution]

Since you are planning on  selling or donating the PC, the safest method is to remove the hard disk.  Use a ball peen hammer on the hard disk and strike it with force using the ball side of the harrer.

Deleting files on a hard disk does not actually remove the data.  Once the hammer method is used, the platters are broken and the data can't be retrieved by anyone.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

I normally just run the recovery disks to restore the PC to its out of the box state.

It will erase all of the current data and replace it with the factory image.

An extremely tech savvy person could try and retrieve any data that was on the hard drive even though you delete partitions, format it, etc.

If you are extremely worried about someone trying to retrieve data, then you can run a program that over writes 1's and 0's on the disk several times.

Here is a free utility you can run to do that, and then run your recovery disks.

http://www.dban.org/

It may take several hours for the process to complete depending on the size of your hard drive.

Paul

[Big_Dave]

Hi,

Depending on your comfort level with using a software utility and may not in fact totally erase the disk, you might want to just move the hard drive to your new PC and use it as a second hard drive.

I know some businesses that often physically destroyed the hard drives rather than run the risk of a software utility that does totally clean the surface.

You can use this software utility to erase the hard drive.  It's a bootable CD.

[123364]

"Don't forget to create recovery media (recovery disk set or USB thumbdrive recovery media). That is the copy of the operating system and drivers that you paid for."

So the recovery discs can still be used to install windows on a new hard drive? I always thought you needed the hard drive itself to keep the OS.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

You can use the recovery disks on any hard drive (new or used), as long as it is at least the same size (in GB) as the one you currently have.

Paul

[123364]

Wow, great answers...awesome support. Thanks everyone!

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

I agree with my colleagues, that the only way you can ensure your data cannot be recovered is to physically destroy the hard drive.

Since I do not believe I have ever had anything on my hard drives that if retrieved would jeopardize my privacy, I am not overly concerned, and have always donated my PC's complete with the HDD's.

I have used the Boot and Nuke program a couple of times. 

If you have a lot of private info, SS #'s or government/corporate top secret info, then I would destroy the drive.

I came across this interesting piece of info...

http://www.stanford.edu/group/security/securecomputing/data_destruction_guidelines.html#5

Paul

[123364]

Ya I don't have ANY documents on my hard drive, lol. I only used this computer to browse the internet, so I'm not too concerned.