ie is it safe to sell one without the hd?

website history, form data etc?

probly a stupid q but just thought id ask

Technically you could(/may depending on a few factors) collect some info from memory before the next boot using some fun hard and software hacks, but really it’d have to be a nobel-prize-winning invention before anyone went to the lengths required. To all intents and purposes if you remove the HDD there’s no incriminating evidence of your porn and bank details 😉

the crumbs inside the keyboard may give some tell tale signs of eating habits 🙂

no but put your tin foil hat on anyway

Wipe down the screen before it goes…

…sorry I’ll get mi coat!!

You don’t need to remove the hard drive physically – just download a program that securely overwrites everything on the hard drive – then no one will be any the wiser about your dwarf-pron collection.

Best easy to get program is DBAN – clicky. Assuming the laptop has a CD drive, download, burn to CD, boot from the CD (you may need instructions on how to do this dependent on the model of laptop), and let it run with the defaults. It might take 2-5 hours so leave it overnight, then bingo – no more dwarves or octopii. Just in case it isn’t clear you’ll lose ALL THE DATA ON THE HARD DISK – END OF – POSSIBLY ONLY RECOVERABLE IF YOU WORK FOR THE CIA. DONE.

I always replace the HD when selling a computer.

Any old HDs I want rid off, I drive a spike through in several places, then give them a bit of loving with a hammer. (No porn 🙂 just commercial secrets)

Yeah, right 😉

only safe way is to remove it your self , and totaly destroy it, with a hammer or cut it in half with a hack saw, was down the tip at the weekend and seen 2 people disposing of there old p.cs , all complete, mugs leaving them selfs wide open for abuse .i never have and will ever relie on supposed software to wipe a hdd for disposal.

5 seconds in a microwave on full renders a HDD controller dead, complete with lightning and that nasty whiffof burning shellac. Then you take the drive apart, use the head magnets as impossibly powerful fridge adornments and the platters as funky coasters.

There’s simply no need to physically destroy a fully working disk when you can leave it intact but blanked. This assumes it’s a normal home PC with all the usual cack that is or was on it – documents, photos, mp3s, some browser data etc. That’s the same data that you emailed as an attachment, uploaded to Flickr, transferred to a USB disk (that got lost) or submit via web forms every day.

Of course if you’re paranoid or just a serial smasher-upper of stuff it can be rewarding to destroy it, but if you just want piece of mind that when your disk turns up on Ebay then no one with a motive any bigger than robbing your credit card details will have any of your data, then things like DBAN are fine.

I’ve managed to recover sooooo much data from hard disks that are supposed to have been wiped by software designed to prevent data recovery.

READ AND REMEMBER!

If you have ANYTHING compromising; financially or personally on your home/business computer remove and keep/destroy (although even this isn’t assured) the HDD.

Oh, and to answer your question – No, it’s all on the HDD.

Daffy – Member
I’ve managed to recover sooooo much data from hard disks that are supposed to have been wiped by software designed to prevent data recovery.

Me too, which is why I physically destroy them. Even then maybe a forensic guy could retrieve some info, but the cost of doing so would exceed the value of the info.

Ultimately there is always a way to recover data off HDD’s no matter what wiping software has been used BUT and this is the big BUT , the cost and complexity increases the better the wiping software used. Assuming the wiping s/w uses LBA it will in tehory reqrite every sector randomly. However, some disk controllers have, and do, start to predictively stop this action hence some fragments being left. It varies on the disk controller more than anything. Anyway, as an ex-computer forensics investigator and writer of disk imaging software i drill a large hole in mine and fill them with Vim powder then power them up 🙂 You won’t find a magnet strong enough to wipe a disk platter that doesn;t do you some personal damage if you get too close and if you are truly disposing of it then the extra cost of a new drive in my opinion is worth it. You just really really need to destroy the platter covering, any other attempts (hammer, water etc) can be easily got round by transplanting the platters into a holder and imaging it off that – its quite normal. Even fire doesn’t really do it.

just kill it with a hammer or a saw, then all the info is most defo gone, peace of mind
job done
oh and yes i am a serial smasher-upper type

Daffy: if you’ve genuinely recovered usable data off a Guttman erased hard drive then you should sell your techniques to GCHQ or the NSA.

GrahamS: Why ? do you think they don;t already have certain techniques available which will get back what they can ? Guttmans algorithm has been the subject of years of investigation and as a cryptographer I have worked with it extensively. However, he doesn’t write the disk controller software so while you may *think* you have ‘guttmanned’ your disk you might not have – and this has been proven factually. So to summarise – in most cases getting data back is so hard its not actually worth it, this applies to 99% of cases. If you are very paranoid about your goat P0rn collection getting out there then replace the disk.

Are you saying that the disk controller firmware deliberately lies about what it has committed to disk AND the various papers that show the effectiveness of Guttman are wrong AND the DoD recommendations for erasing classified data are deliberately weak?

I thought it was all about zero filling many times?

I use CCleaner to erase web history, cache, etc.

That can erase to Gutmann standard.

I never questioned Guttmans algorithm
DoD recommendations are absolutely fine and would in almost all cases result in data being impossible* to get back. The * is to signify that impossible means mathematically and statistically ‘impossible’
Historically though there were certain conditions on certain disk controllers that meant the controller refused to write contiguously for extended write periods so in brutal terms it suggested it had done something it may not actually have done completely. We certainly saw it with one particular make, model and firmware revsion of a drive (my disclaimer to all of this is that I exited the forensics game in 1999) which we tested because our forensics machines were ‘cleaned’ after each case and as part of our internal QA we tested them every now and then – as teaching aid as well and lo on one we found some data near the ‘end’. Not a lot to be fair but some that was recognisable as real data not mush. It was extrememly odd behaviour and was only where contiguous writes were used as in sector by sector – not many things ask a disk controller to do that as in general disk operation its writing across the whole head. Given that I do what i do to my disks to make sure there are no question marks. Its something that fascinates me – right up there with the guy i met who reckoned he could interpret data from flashing LED’s on disk arrays !

NZCol: I bow to your greater expertise. Very interesting, ta.

For the OP (and most folk) I’d still say that DBAN is just fine.

Unless you’re storing stuff that is more classified than military level. And even then hopefully it would already be encrypted with a suitably long cypher, which would render any recovered data fairly useless anyway.

So if it’s not incriminating and not of value, use software, if it’s of value then physically damage the disk, and if it’s incriminating, then shred the entire disk and eat it or feed it to your goat.

No, data isn’t only stored on the hdd, make sure you remove the Post-It notes with your various password on, usually located just above your keyboard.. 😀