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[Andy B]

Right ..... after being passed from just about every piller & post Tesco has I've been offered a replacement for my daughter's Gateway lap top - there's problem with the charger making contact inside somewhere.
I know that when you 'delete' information from a hard drive the info is still actually there until it's written over the top of again, the computer is just told to ignore it, but what's the minimum I should do regarding deleting files - other than sticking a screw driver through the hard drive?!  :-/  :-/
Any help should be in a Janet & John reading level type way! (for the younger viewers that means, easy to understand!  )

[Mr Skrunts]

I believe even though it's written over many times it is still accesable.

Example.

I posted a while back regards an XD card from my camera the I couldnt read, many members posted up idea's and some recovery software links.  Tried them all (4 in total) 2 were naff, 1 did ok but annother one showed me pics of building from the last delete and some landscape pics from the delete before, the shame was it didnt recover the current pics.

There are programs that erase data more efficiently during formatting, there are also file scrubbers and delete uitls that can actually work like a cross cut shredder and at least make files harder if not impossoble to recover.

Depends what you actually require.

Check out www.download.com and put in file deltet or file erasor or similar to get an idea of what is possible

[Debs.]

Right ..... after being passed from just about every piller & post Tesco has I've been offered a replacement for my daughter's Gateway lap top - there's problem with the charger making contact inside somewhere.
I know that when you 'delete' information from a hard drive the info is still actually there until it's written over the top of again, the computer is just told to ignore it, but what's the minimum I should do regarding deleting files - other than sticking a screw driver through the hard drive?!  :-/  :-/
Any help should be in a Janet & John reading level type way! (for the younger viewers that means, easy to understand!  )

A wave or two over the drive with an industrial permanent-magnet works for me! .....some local P.C repair shops have A.C 'magnetic-media erasing' electro-magnets for just a small fee for a use.

[Mr Skrunts]

Right ..... after being passed from just about every piller & post Tesco has I've been offered a replacement for my daughter's Gateway lap top - there's problem with the charger making contact inside somewhere.
I know that when you 'delete' information from a hard drive the info is still actually there until it's written over the top of again, the computer is just told to ignore it, but what's the minimum I should do regarding deleting files - other than sticking a screw driver through the hard drive?!  :-/  :-/
Any help should be in a Janet & John reading level type way! (for the younger viewers that means, easy to understand!  )

A wave or two over the drive with an industrial permanent-magnet works for me! .....some local P.C repair shops have A.C 'magnetic-media erasing' electro-magnets for just a small fee for a use.

I bought a scsi drive off flea bay that had "been wiped", put in on top of my case before fitting, when to pick it up and the case came with it.  was magnetised, so be carefull.

PMSL, the seller probably wiped the magnet over tooooo many times, in the same way you do to make a magnet screw driver.  

[Kevin Wood]

You can get images for software that you can write to a CD or floppy that then becomes bootable. Boot the machine from this and then it gives you the option to erase the hard drive.

Something like "Boot and Nuke": http://dban.sourceforge.net/

.. of course it won't even boot after doing this, as Windows will be nuked too, but if you're giving it back defective this is no concern.

It's not unknown for such retailers to sell machines containing people's personal data so you're right to do something.

Kevin

[Entwood]

Few available here for free :

http://www.snapfiles.com/Freeware/security/fwerase.html

Ultrawipe, Boot & Nuke (previously mentioned), Killdisk are all reasonable for most folks

[Markjay]

Any drive is ultimately restoreable using the right kit, the only 100% sure way is to physically destroy it.

But there are various utilities that re-write the drive with random data several (or many times), and this should be more than good enough for most home and business users, so strictly speaking physical damage is not really needed in real-life scenarios.

Having said that, in many cases it is easier and quicker to simply physically destroy the drive, especially if it is an old low-capacity drive, than to go through the process of properly erasing it... we get old computers from customers with 20gb or 40gb IDE drives, we jut destroy them and don't bother with wiping.

 

[dbug]

One of the best freeware ones is called Eraser - just google it

[edit]Link - http://www.tolvanen.com/eraser/ - follow download link on left hand side[/edit]

[Andy B]

Thanks for all your suggestions, I'll have a look at doing something before we take it back. We She's still copying stuff to this PC 1Gb at a time via a memory stick.
Tesco did say that returned stuff is physically destroyed but as I said I just wanted to at least do something.

[willyboy]

Dunno whose gonna wanna look at it not many me thinks, but I figure if you just reformat it, that should be good enough, as it will show as an empty drive, so unless you are a spy or something dont think anyone will even think of trying to extract info thats deeply enbedded in it, as i say it will be blank.

[dbug]

Tescos will send it back to their supplier, who will probably reformat hard drive, reinstall windows and sell back out.  If its bought by a "clever" bu**er, any sensitive data that was on there could probably be retrieved.

My advice use eraser or similar, multi pass, then do low level format and then fill drive with "zeros" - most bios will do this or use hard drive manufacturers software.