How To : Erase All Contents In Laptop Before Disposal?

[Guest manliman]

Hi all computer experts here:

Knowing that my laptop is going to breakdown very soon, how can we safely dispose off our laptop without worrying that someone will pick it up at the rubbish bin and access our hard drive?

I heard that there is no fool proof method to totally erase all our contents in hard drive, is it true?

Is formatting the hard drive a good method?

Or should I open up the laptop and locate the hard drive and smash up the chip?

U would have heard abt Edison Chen infamous story, so how to prevent a repeat case? (well, not that i've Edison's habit of 自拍).

Thank u in advance to all that response.

[HendryTan]

I do this for myself. Not commercial grade way. But I guess FREE and good enough.

1. Use some of these free tools to "Wipe Clean" your disk

http://www.tucows.com/software.html?t2=1831

http://www.thefreecountry.com/security/securedelete.shtml

2. After that, I will physically remove the harddisk from the PC/laptop/handphone. Dispose the PC/laptop/handphone separately from the harddisk.

3. To make you feel EXTRA safe.

a. Take a hammer to crush the disk where the cables connect and break the hard-disk cover. Break the platters inside if possible.

b. Then I will throw the crush disk into a NTUC bag and fill it with dirty water. Soak it over night before dumping it. The resultant is so messy even the KarongGuni man will not want to salvage the harddisk.

[Guest robina]

I will hammer the hard disk drive to damaged state. i uses a screw driver and hammer to damage the disk plates one by one to be sure and then throw it away.

[darkflame]

I do this for myself. Not commercial grade way. But I guess FREE and good enough.

1. Use some of these free tools to "Wipe Clean" your disk

http://www.tucows.com/software.html?t2=1831

http://www.thefreecountry.com/security/securedelete.shtml

2. After that, I will physically remove the harddisk from the PC/laptop/handphone. Dispose the PC/laptop/handphone separately from the harddisk.

3. To make you feel EXTRA safe.

a. Take a hammer to crush the disk where the cables connect and break the hard-disk cover. Break the platters inside if possible.

b. Then I will throw the crush disk into a NTUC bag and fill it with dirty water. Soak it over night before dumping it. The resultant is so messy even the KarongGuni man will not want to salvage the harddisk.

OMG! I love this tactic!

[Guest Guest]

Is there anyway to fully delete files from your laptop hardrives. Some people have said that even though you delete a file then empty the trash bin it can still be retreived by an IT expert if they want to. I have a company laptop and I want to ensure if it goes back to IT or something, there is nothing they can access??

[IkuTube]

Is there anyway to fully delete files from your laptop hardrives. Some people have said that even though you delete a file then empty the trash bin it can still be retreived by an IT expert if they want to. I have a company laptop and I want to ensure if it goes back to IT or something, there is nothing they can access??

It's has been said that it is nearly impossible to totally delete files in a hard drive unless you destroy the disk. To minimize traces, you might want to consider re-formatting the hard drive though the professionals would still be able to trace, but costly. Formatting is a better way than to run a program that promises a 100% clean-up.

[victorp]

On Mac OS X platform, Apple Disk Utility allows one to zero-out every sector in the hard disk. It has an option for 1-pass (default), 7-pass and 35-pass. Obviously, the higher number of passes means it is going to take a while.

[Guest saz]

haha all the above answers are really cute, anyway software erase for hdd is not 100% foolproof, there are many ways to recover the data via

data forensic tool, you could use low level utility software , google for Hiren Boot cd it contains several utilities to erase disc, or you could use

Secure Erase( used by US department of Defense I think) but it requires a lengthy process and a floppy drive but it the closest to best free disk eraser

out there not to mention beat some of the expensive commercial tool.

http://cmrr.ucsd.edu...cureErase.shtml

Cheers hope my info helps

[subarucap]

i sent my 2 int hdd for RMA recently. cos they were making awful clicking sounds.

i just hope the guy cleaning up the hdd enjoys gay pxxno.