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Sanitizing a Computer

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centralTO

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Feb 28, 2008
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Hi Guys,

I have a tech question I hope someone can answer. I'm going to pass on my old PC to my 15-year-old nephew. I want to erase absolutely everything personal before I do so, ESPECIALLY PHOTOS, WEBSITES AND BROWSING HISTORY RELATED TO HOBBYING, and things like automatic population of subject and search windows.

I've done some searches on the Net related to purging a hard drive, but I wanted to get some info from Terbites just to be ultra-safe, since I imagine some of us already have dealt with this issue before. How do I make absolutely, 1,000% sure that nothing compromising will ever appear on the PC once I pass it over to him? I'm especially concerned since I know he is very tech-savvy and has enough time on his hands to just want to pry into his uncle's affairs and see where he went surfing... (Heck, I'd do the same at his age.)

Thanks for any help.
 
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cypherpunk

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Mar 10, 2004
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Aside from destroying the hard drive, the safest thing to do is overwrite every bit on it and reinstall Windows. Look up hard drive zeroing and you'll find a handful of decent tools for the overwriting. If you're paranoid, don't settle for half measures like "Windows cleaning" tools.
 
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enyaw

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May 8, 2005
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not to be blunt, but why don't you just put in a "clean" new harddrive in the machine and deal with the old one afterwards. They aren't that expensive nowadays. Depending on the size your looking at? Since your trying to wipe the drive anyways.
 
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WoodPeckr

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If you are that concerned about it, enyaw above offered the best advise. Buy and put in a new drive. They are cheap.
 
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The Mechanic

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Jan 5, 2007
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centralTO said:
Hi Guys,

I have a tech question I hope someone can answer. I'm going to pass on my old PC to my 15-year-old nephew. I want to erase absolutely everything personal before I do so, ESPECIALLY PHOTOS, WEBSITES AND BROWSING HISTORY RELATED TO HOBBYING, and things like automatic population of subject and search windows.

I've done some searches on the Net related to purging a hard drive, but I wanted to get some info from Terbites just to be ultra-safe, since I imagine some of us already have dealt with this issue before. How do I make absolutely, 1,000% sure that nothing compromising will ever appear on the PC once I pass it over to him? I'm especially concerned since I know he is very tech-savvy and has enough time on his hands to just want to pry into his uncle's affairs and see where he went surfing... (Heck, I'd do the same at his age.)

Thanks for any help.
Click to expand...
Fine yourself a program called "nuke disc " or "boot and nuke" will clean everything off your drive will take some time to do
 
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islandman4567

Active member
Oct 9, 2002
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not sure if its the same one , but I tried a program called DBAN.

it sounds like its the same , its Darik's boot and nuke. but that thing, as you said takes FOREVER.

there's a program called clearhdd.exe that's very fast and should do what you want.

it was originally made by samsung , but I don't think you necessarily have to use it on only samsungs.
here's a link to some more info on it.
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/printpage/29
 
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danibbler

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Feb 2, 2002
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enyaw said:
not to be blunt, but why don't you just put in a "clean" new harddrive in the machine and deal with the old one afterwards. They aren't that expensive nowadays. Depending on the size your looking at? Since your trying to wipe the drive anyways.
Click to expand...
Best idea here. Here is what I would do...get one of those other programs to zero out the drive, reinstall Windows if you like, then, take out the drive and replace it with a brand new one. If nephew asks, just tell him that he's getting a much bigger HD for his music files and whatnot. ;)
 
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Horney_Senior

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Dec 12, 2003
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Considering the cost of drives these days you would be doing your nephew a favour by just putting in a new drive with a fresh install of windows. That way there is no question of what's on the machine and it doesn't carry any of the other 'bad stuff', like a trashed registry.

Teenagers also need more space to download 'stuff'.
 
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bjsk90

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Feb 23, 2007
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Though all of the suggestions that were suggested are valid, such a erasing the hard drive by overwriting it, I personally think it goes overboard for what you're trying to achieve. Just get the computer's old Windows XP installation disk and do a fresh install of the OS on it. During this procedure it will give you the option of reformatting the drive. Reformatting the drive destroys its file allocation tables and resets them to scratch. There won't even be old filename entries left over as they will be newly created from scratch too. It's one step higher than simply erasing files, but a little less secure than doing the bit-for-bit overwrite.

If you have more than one hard drive, then you should reformat that hard drive too before sending it to your nephew.

Really at this level, some 15 year old kid won't know how to recover these files, he'll need some expensive tools like what spy agencies might have.
 
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cypherpunk

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Mar 10, 2004
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bjsk90 said:
Really at this level, some 15 year old kid won't know how to recover these files, he'll need some expensive tools like what spy agencies might have.
Click to expand...
The domain of spy agencies is the recovery of overwritten data by looking at the exact polzarization of each bit.
 
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LurkingInMyTent

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Feb 15, 2003
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I suggest that all of you read this article...

http://searchwincomputing.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid68_gci1246592,00.html

A simple one pass overwrite using a reasonably random data stream results in an unrecoverable wipe of a hard disk. The aforementioned Dariks' Boot and Nuke utility, easily available for download as a bootable ISO disc image, has a quick wipe feature that does this.

I would second, or third enyaw's suggestion that you simply get a new hard drive to replace the current one - provided that the computer isn't so old that you have a problem finding something that's compatible. As a side benefit of this, if you disassemble the old hard drive (you'll probably need a set of torx drivers for this), you can score a really powerful fridge magnet out of the deal, plus the hard disc platter makes a pretty nice drinks coaster.

(Edited to add...) This will of course also require that you have the Windows install disc and a valid license key. If your nephew is tech savvy, why not let him do the installation, that way he can set it up however he wants, and it saves you the time.
 
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onehunglow

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Sep 13, 2007
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Put in a new drive. I have been able to recover data from almost any drive regardless of the program used to delete information and even dead drives. $54 puts an 80 gb drive in a machine and reinstall windows.
 
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enyaw

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May 8, 2005
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thx, 4 the support guys, also that drive can be used as an external just buy a case, which is cheap nowadays and off you go. The depth of the answers to date is pretty impressive I must say. Use the old one as a porn drive etc, and forget all the hassles and time. It really isn't worth it. I guess you were throwing out a question to the fish and you got a lot of good responses

good luck
 
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bjsk90

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Feb 23, 2007
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Bi-town ;)
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johnnyone1

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Jan 5, 2008
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Andy Stitzer said:
... Sure there are some people who can read just about anything, but I doubt a kid has the resources to do it, no would most have the inclination to do so, unless someone suspects you of being a terrorist or a crime mogal.
Click to expand...
I use a software called Drivescrubber 3 that I bought from Staples. Does that do a proper job of wiping info and making it unrecoverable?
 
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cypherpunk

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Mar 10, 2004
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johnnyone1 said:
I use a software called Drivescrubber 3 that I bought from Staples. Does that do a proper job of wiping info and making it unrecoverable?
Click to expand...
Probably. If it's not open source, doesn't have a Wikipedia entry, and doesn't have a good user base, you pretty much have to take the developer's word for it. But it's not as though the technique is rocket science or a big secret.
 
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johnnyone1

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Jan 5, 2008
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cypherpunk said:
Probably. If it's not open source, doesn't have a Wikipedia entry, and doesn't have a good user base, you pretty much have to take the developer's word for it. But it's not as though the technique is rocket science or a big secret.
Click to expand...
It says on the box "meets and exceeds U.S. department of Defence Standards". I'm not sure how reassuring that is.

It's made by a company called iolo technologies in California.

What software could I get to test whether the Drivescrubber 3 is doing its job?

IE: That I could use to try and recover the deleted files?
 
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