Wednesday, April 14, 2004
Give away your old computer, not your old data
How to throw away a computer
Before you send your old computer to a nonprofit or to a landfill, stop and think. Is there anything on the hard disk that you want to erase first?
Windows may have stored passwords for you. It certainly stored a record of what Web sites you've visited. If you don't visit embarrassing Web sites, what about your old email? Did you type any letters that included a credit card number?
People have thrown out hard disks with all sorts of sensitive information on them.
When you format a disk and Windows tells you "All information will be lost!", all Windows means is "I won't be able to find it". Running a normal format or fdisk command overwrites the system's map of the disk but doesn't overwrite your data. To keep your data safe you need to run a program that writes over every sector on the disk.
The simplest and cheapest way to write over your data is to boot with a DOS floppy and type "format /u". The "/u" flag is supposed to destroy your data. You can also download a utility that's specially built to overwrite your data. If you like doing your own research, Sarah Dean put together a review of several disk-shredding utilities. And if you like paying for software, the Norton Utilities include a program called WipeInfo which will do the job nicely.
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Before you send your old computer to a nonprofit or to a landfill, stop and think. Is there anything on the hard disk that you want to erase first?
Windows may have stored passwords for you. It certainly stored a record of what Web sites you've visited. If you don't visit embarrassing Web sites, what about your old email? Did you type any letters that included a credit card number?
People have thrown out hard disks with all sorts of sensitive information on them.
When you format a disk and Windows tells you "All information will be lost!", all Windows means is "I won't be able to find it". Running a normal format or fdisk command overwrites the system's map of the disk but doesn't overwrite your data. To keep your data safe you need to run a program that writes over every sector on the disk.
The simplest and cheapest way to write over your data is to boot with a DOS floppy and type "format /u". The "/u" flag is supposed to destroy your data. You can also download a utility that's specially built to overwrite your data. If you like doing your own research, Sarah Dean put together a review of several disk-shredding utilities. And if you like paying for software, the Norton Utilities include a program called WipeInfo which will do the job nicely.
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