My computer is shortly going to become a “family” computer. I have saved the files to disk that I want to keep; and I believe that I have all the reinstall type disks I need. Being that I am a single 33-year-old woman, I might have a few files that I would prefer a computer-savvy 15-year-old newcomer to find. A friend of mine once suggested “fdisking” when my ex was giving me trouble, but I’m unsure how to begin on that. Anyone out there feel like giving a girl a hand? I’m pretty computer “un-savvy.”
If you’ve got your OS disks, a simple reformat/reinstall should take care of it for you. Just reboot with your Windows CD in the drive, and follow the prompts. Make sure you tell it to delete your current partition and reformat the disk when it asks.
That won’t protect you if the 15-year-old decides to use some kind of file recovery tool on the hard drive, but it’ll frustrate casual snoopers.
The reinstall CDs should do okay… not knowing their details, but in all likelihood there’s one that you should put in your computer when it’s booting up. (If it doesn’t recognize the CD drive and boots up into your normal OS, there might be a special key that you have to press to trigger a CD drive boot.) Then the CD or CDs should either reimage your hard drive pretty much automatically, or lead you through the process in a relatively painless way.
fdisk, IIRC involves repartitioning the hard drive - setting up new partitions to get formatted… it’s the level down underneath formatting, if that makes sense. (Why does fdisk have an f in it? I’m not sure on that one.) At this point, I think it would be overkill to do a manual fdisk on the system.
Sorry I couldn’t give you any more specific details, but I hope that this helps.
Thank you for the quick reply, black. Is a file recovery tool a common thing? I don’t know that he would try it, but I prefer to know that some of the files on my computer are completely gone.
BTW, in case you haven’t figured it out, this method will completely delete Windows and reinstall it on a fresh partition, so make damn well shure you’ve got backup copies of everything you want to keep - including driver CDs for any additional hardware you’ve got, and any applications you’ve downloaded.
I know you said you’ve got reinstall disks, but believe me, it never hurts to measure twice.
When you delete files, all you’re really doing is removing the markers that say “there’s desirable data in this sector”. The data is still there, but the space is now unallocated and will eventually be written over as you refill your drive with new stuff. Until the sector is rewritten, though, the data in that sector is still recoverable.
There are programs that will go over and rewrite free space and deleted files with gibberish to prevent them from being recovered, but a simple disk wipe won’t do that.
Depends. Hard drives have a sort of ‘memory’ that can be used to determine what was there before the sector was overwritten… with more or less success. There are cleaner programs that simply overwrite again and again and again, to the point that the data that was held there before the cleaning process was begun is almost entirely certain to be lost… one pass write a 0 in every cell, then write a 1 in every cell… maybe then alternate, and so on.
I’m not sure that many 15-year olds would go to the trouble of looking for what might have been there pre-format, or be able to find anything without losing the current contents of the drive.
Relatively. I had one once that came in a package including other tools. It could retrieve some deleted datas. So, if your 15 yo really wanted, for some reason, to know what was on your computer, I assume he could easily find such a tool and use it. And be able to find some stuff that used to be on your hard drive.
Well, I don’t think it is likely that anyone will be purposefully snooping; I just wanted to prevent any accidental surprises. Sure, I love my Christmas e-card of Rudolph crying out “Whip me, beat me, you fat bastard!” but I just don’t feel comfortable with any of the young’uns asking me about it
They’re easy enough to download, but results can be kind of hit and miss.
One way to make it even harder: before you reinstall Windows, download something like BC Wipe, which will overwrite you’re files/hard drive with random data. First, use it to wipe any sensitive files you may still have sitting around, and then use it to wipe the free space on your hard drive to take care of any files you may have insecurely deleted in the past.
The reason I suggested reinstalling Windows is that I’m not a Windows guy, and I’m not familiar with all of the places where it can store sensitive info. There are the obvious ones, like your browser cache and Recent Documents folder, but I dunno about various nooks and crannies in the registry.
Where I work, we’ve got a standard practice for recycling hard drives:
[ol]
[li] Boot the machine using a Linux CD or mount the hard drive in a separate workstation[/li][li] Wipe the filesystem using the shred utility[/li][li] Overwrite the entire hard drive with zeroes[/li][li] Overwrite the hard drive with random data[/li][li] Overwrite with zeroes again[/li][li] Take a couple of big magnets and rub them all over the case[/li][/ol]
If any of our corporate rivals have access to an electron microscope, we may still be in trouble. The only surefire way to get rid of everything involves a sledgehammer, an MRI machine, and a pit of lava.
Similar question: I have some old behemoths taking up space in my apartment with personal data on the hard drive. Is there some way to physically remove the HD (for the non-mechanically inclined) so that if I have something taking up space it’s very little space? The only reason I won’t pitch these thngs into the trash is my concerns about security.
Depends on the style of computer. For your ordinary PC tower, you’ll need a screwdriver and a little persistance, maybe some tips from a technically inclined friend. Basic overview:
unplug computer.
Open up the case (screws on the back panel will be holding the sides of the tower on.)
Find any CD-rom drives, which should be easy because you can see where the CD tray pops out of the front of the computer.
There should be a flat, ribbonlike cable connecting the CD-rom drives, the hard drive, and the motherboard. The hard drive will probably be rectangularish, half and inch to two inches thick, and enclosed… shouldn’t be hard to tell that from the motherboard, which will be very flat, exposed, and have a bunch of other things sticking out of it or connecting up to it. THe hard drive will also in all likelihood be higher up in the tower than the motherboard.
From there, you’ll need to find any screws holding the hard drive in place, unscrew them, and slip it back through its housing and out of the tower case.
Hope that this helps.
Hard drive removal is simplicity itself.
remove the computer side panels - normaly secured by three screws down the rear edge then pulle an inch or so rearwards and lifted off. Some machines, the whole top and side panels come off in one piece.
The drive will be secured with four screws, two either side. The ones on the left of the machine can sometimes be a litle bit tricky to reach but not a major problem.
Remove the power and data leads, which just pull out rearwards, the power lead is often pretty tight. Pull the drive from its carriage.
On a few machines, the memory might be in the way.
Push down on the securing clips at either end of the memory stick and the memory will pop out, lift it out of the way but don’t touch the gold pins at the bottom.
After removal of the drive refit it. It only goes in one way - look for the keys. Push it straight into the slot untill the securing clips engage.
And Re: wiping files, Spybot Search and Destroy has a file shredder tool.
It is a free download. Use the ‘Advanced’ mode and ‘tools’
Can one of you techies please explain to me what the simple format command does? I gave an old computer away to a charity, and simply typed "format c: "
to clean it all out.
I didn’t have anything to hide , so I’m not concerned for myself.But I stuck a post-it note for the recipient that they would need to re-install Windows because the computer was now “totally empty inside”. (that’s how much tech lingo I know)
Now, I know that “delete” doesnt remove a file, it just erases the file name from the master list in the FAT. But I thought “Format” erases everything.
