I recently purchased a second computer. I purchased it from someone who had dealings with substances of a somewhat illegal nature. I would prefer not to have any information or references to illegal activity on my computer. Now, I know that its possible to retrieve deleted file because they’re not really erased (the computer just allocated that area as usable.) But I’ve also heard that its possible to retrieve files that have been written over. That somehow what is written “under” it can be retrieved.
After watching so many CSI, and Law and Order episodes, I’m concerned that some time down the line, should my computer be examined, it will contain contacts and recipes for illegal substances. How do I permanately purge my new harddrive (with out harming it…)?
Actually the episode that really bothered me was “Law and Order” (i think - had Richard Belzer). It was all about incidental infringement on the privacy of private citizens. They invade the privacy, searched homes and premises, obtained DNA, invaded medical records - SEVERAL times on innocent people before finally figuring out who they really wanted. Kinda weirded me out cause it seemed so plausible.
I’d hate to have anything questionable in my home should this “unlikely” occurance ever happen…
Anyway thanks Daizy for the response. I now see that someone else recently asked this question, and got appropriate responses which should be helpful.
IIRC The Norton Utilities package which you can get pretty much free after rebates these days form Staples etc will do a high security “scrub” (ie multiple overwrites) of the deleted data that you can use to before formatting.
There are other share/freeware utilites you can get form DL sites like www.tucows.com that will do the same thing.
enter the words “securely delete” into the site’s search engine. There are dozens of utilities listed that do this.
Well, (not advocating breaking the law, etc. etc.) most police departments are staggeringly behind when it comes to computer evidence. It’s unlikely they could recover data after a simple formatting, much less if you’ve written anything to the drive afterwards. Even data recovery companies would charge you mega$$ to even attempt such a thing.
No, if you’re really worried about this, you’d have to be worried that the cops think they can get something off the drive. I could format a 2nd hand drive such that everything is overwritten x times and nothing is recoverable, but could still end up having all my HDs confiscated if some investigating officer thinks it’s worth a shot. Judging from most people’s experiences, I wouldn’t get them back no matter what, either.
So I guess that doesn’t really help you alot. Just say you formatted and overwrote it if anyone asks, I suppose.
I don’t really see you getting busted for something deleted on a 2nd hand computer anyways. I wouldn’t be that nervous, really.
How old is the drive in question? If more than “a couple” or it’s small, just get a new drive and smash the old one - if the platters are gouged and bent, it’s pretty hard for anyone to recover anything from them.
Not only will you get a nice new drive with (probably) better performance and more storage capacity, you won’t have to break out in a cold sweat the next time someone’s pounding on the door.
Last I saw, there was a rebate on the Western Digital 12000JB drive - 120 GB with an 8 MG cache - taking the price below $100. A year ago, this was THE drive to have. Now, it’s not THE drive, but it’s still a very good one.
