Re: Opps! Erasing hard drive question?

Tech-Archive recommends: Repair Windows Errors & Optimize Windows Performance


"Ken Blake" <kblake@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:uloGP6WaFHA.1384@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> In news:9BEE9C0F-97A8-4FA5-BE9C-738B3D6D3276@xxxxxxxxxxxxx,
> Little bit 77 <littlest_ram(removethis)77@xxxxxxxxxxx> typed:
>
>> Sorry, I posted this in the performance and maintence folder and it
>> probably should have been here!
>>
>> We're wanting to sell our computer and were wondering how we can
>> erase all our private information off of the computer. It's Windows
>> XP and the computer is a Compaq. I've heard that there is software
>> that will wipe off everything completely. Would appreciate any help,
>> as we've never sold one before. We'd heard of people deleting
>> everything, but yet there are places that your personal information
>> can still turn up on the hard drive!!
>
>
> It all depends on how paranoid you are (and how valuable to anyone else is
> the data on your computer). For the vast majority of people, simply
> reformatting the drive is good enough.
>
> Yes, drives can be unformatted, and deleted files can be undeleted. But
> it's a rare person who will buy a used computer and instead of using it
> for his own uses, will work hard at trying to find your data. Not only is
> it unlikely that he will want to, but it's also unlikely that he would
> know how.
>
> But if you are worried about this possibility, there are several programs
> available that overwrite everything on your drive with zeros. Most of them
> even let you do that overwriting multiple times.
>
> Overwriting with zeros multiple times substantially decreases the risk of
> anyone recovering your data, but it's important to realize that even that
> is not perfect; there are sophisticated data recovery techniques that can
> sometimes recover even such overwritten data. That's why the US governemnt
> doesn't rely on such techniques for really critical data, but physically
> melts the drive in a furnace.
>
> If it were me, I'd just format the drive, but the choice is yours.
>
> --
> Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
> Please reply to the newsgroup
>


A couple of years ago, I worked as a civilian contractor for the DoD as a
Desktop Support Technician. The only thing we did to erase hard drives was
using a program that wrote 1's and zeros to the entire drive. This program
wrote the entire drive with the ones and zeros 10 times.





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