Personal computers, i would replace the harddrive or if its a giveaway, let the new ower replace it.

Personally, I dont keep anything on my work laptop that is personal. I run an external hdd. as far as saved passwords, etc. change all your personal passwords.

 

First: What company policies are in place that talk about your responsibilities and restrictions in relation to your system?

Second: Copy your profile out of the "DOCUMENTS and SETTINGS" folder to another storage device. (CD, thumb drive, external hard drive, etc). Look elsewhere in the file system for your information and copy that also.

Third: Erase your profile and any other of your information

Fourth: WIPE the computer, if allowed, with a NSA/ DoD standard product.
http://www.eraseyourharddrive.com/product.htm
This is one. Do a GOOGLE search on: "NSA standards computer wipe software" and you will find many.

Remember, without WIPING the hard drive, everything is recoverable. What the WIPE does is write "1" and "0" to each sector several times. Most are selectable as to how many times the write is done - more writes are better.

"FORMAT C" just removes the table where location information for files is kept. It is relatively easy to get the files back.

"FDISK" allows the removal of the partition information. Much harder to get things back.

"FDISK" followed by "FORMAT" makes things even more hard.

But first, find out what your company wants or will accept.

Hal

 

In my case there is no company involved. It is a privately owned computer. Second, the dang thing will not start, so I can't wipe anything.
Third, I am reluctant to purchase a new HD due to the high cost in my location.
Forth, all I need to know if placing strong magnets on to the HD case will scramble any info on the discs. If the HD does not work after that, it does not matter. Let the new owner install a new HD. All I want to do is render the existing info unreadable, even if it is still there.

 

Hi Mexstan!

If cost is an issue but you have broadband you can download a Kubuntu CD and install it on the hard drive- This will wipe any eventual info on the disk beyond the capabilities of amateurs.
Naturally if the disk is physically defective even Linux will not be able to access it. And with Kubuntu installed you have a machine with an OS, an office suite etc that is legal without spending money on software.

If you have ???s just holler or shoot me a PM

AlpineRAM

 

Does it attempt to start? You could use a startup disk, depending on the file system (NTFS, FAT, FAT32). The disk will have the FDISK program on it.

Hal

 

The magnets may scramble some of the data, but you can't count on it. The best thing to do is remove the drive and put in a hydraulic press. It would take NSA to get anything out of it after that.

 

for the NSA to recover anything off my HDDs, they are 1. gonna have to find all the disks. 2. patch the bullet holes in each disk.

That being said. Mexistan, the magnets may scramble whats on the disk, it may also have a strong enough field to permanently damage the disk.

 

Be wary of doing personal stuff on the Internet at work. Your company may be tracking everything you do on the Internet.

My employer has software that records every URL anyone visits on the Internet. The software attempts to categorize if the URL is business related or not, but it does a terrible job of that. Besides, I work at a media outlet and reporters visit sites like myspace and such for work reasons all the time.

 

every publicly traded company is required by law (sorbanes oxley) to maintain records of what websites are visited thru their network. it may be a simple IP address, time, date stamp, but it is logged and it can be mined

 

Is this documented somewhere? We were a public company until a year ago and nobody ever mentioned having to do anything like this for SOX compliance.

We mainly run the software so we can monitor what is using our bandwidth. It is rare that anyone ever checks what an individual has been doing. The software we use can also filter what websites users can go to. Management has indicated they may start filtering both to cut down bandwidth and to reduce producitivity loss.

 

Im not a SOX expert, I have some friends that work I.T. and have been told that its part of the compliance requirements.

 

Some versions of Norton System Works has an erase data program associated with it..It can be ran from the disc as well as an installed program on the computer..

 

There is a freeware program called eraser.exe that does a decent job of erasing files. You might check the something like Tucows for it.

 

If you dont mind, what kind of personal data are you trying to get rid of?

 

Thanks guys for all the answers and sorry to be so slow in responding. Believe it or not, but DTR is not of prime importance in my busy life here in Paradise.

The computer will fire up but not load anything. It used to have two hard drives and the primary has a bogus version of Windows loaded. It is not my computer. The problem started when the second HD was removed. Could the problem just be a case of changing jumpers?
The owner just wants to remove some personal files before giving the computer to charity.