Dispose of old laptop...
- Thread starter Bobby
- Start date
Are there folk out there offering this kind of a service?
If you want to be really secure you could wipe the harddrive and format it using a secure formatting tool and another computer.
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-hard-drive-eraser.htm. You'll probably have to pay someone else to securely take the laptop off your hands and ensure the harddrive is wiped.
If you want to be really secure you could wipe the harddrive and format it using a secure formatting tool and another computer.
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-hard-drive-eraser.htm. You'll probably have to pay someone else to securely take the laptop off your hands and ensure the harddrive is wiped.
PlainSnailing
Member
I'd check with your local town/borough/district council. Some places are around, and they do deal with the safe dismantling if electronic equipment (and the extraction of rate and precious metals), but the services are far and few in-between. You may need to look towards the nearest large town centre.
ubuysa
The BSOD Doctor
Whilst it is true that with the right equipment a drive that has been wiped can still be read, the skills and equipment to do this are expensive and not common. We're talking GCHQ/NSA/FBI here, not little Johnny round the corner. If you wipe the disk using any of the freely available tools, especially those using the DoD method, your data will be gone. I think we can get too paranoid about these things sometimes. 
feetofclay
Active member
there is always the "beat the hdd to death with a hammer"
there is always the "beat the hdd to death with a hammer"
Still traceable.
Surely thats like stating that shredding sensitive paper documents is still traceable... yeah it is... but who's going to bother gluing all the bits back together. Unless the OP has lots of actually sensitive information that folk will really want (rather than just personally identifiable stuff) on the HDD as I and Ubuysa pointed out I reckon wiping it is fine.
I'd wager there are easier ways to get folks bank details (and what not) than trying to pull info off a wiped hard drive. Maybe I'm being naive though
.Surely thats like stating that shredding sensitive paper documents is still traceable... yeah it is... but who's going to bother gluing all the bits back together. Unless the OP has lots of actually sensitive information that folk will really want (rather than just personally identifiable stuff) on the HDD as I and Ubuysa pointed out I reckon wiping it is fine.
I'd wager there are easier ways to get folks bank details (and what not) than trying to pull info off a wiped hard drive. Maybe I'm being naive though
A simple wipe does not clear the data, it just removes it from the File Allocation Table, it is easy to put back together if you know what you are doing as all the data is still on the disk. And you never know the trouble some people might go through. You may have some card details on there or something that may still be traceable.
I'm aware of the fact that pressing delete doesn't actually delete the data. That's why I suggested using a program which writes over the 'free space' in post 2 which I believe does actually wipe the hard drive (I could be wrong). If you smash the hard drive and delete stuff which was kinda what I thought was being discussed in post 8 I'd be willing to put money on the safety of the data on that drive. Mostly because of the effort required to put the bits back together to find out if it had been wiped correctly or simply deleted.
Free space wipe should do it, but would take a long time to do on newer drives that are 2TB or whatever. And in regards to smashing it; first of all if you smash it without removing the cover, you are barely going to do any damage. The disk will be intact only damage would be to the alignment of the arm and the head that reads the drive. and if you do manage to open it (difficult considering the rare screws) you will only be breaking small parts. If you smash a bit of glass, most of it is still intact, only small lines are actually broken.
ubuysa
The BSOD Doctor
Like most things in life the key word in all of this interesting discussion is risk. The data on a wiped (note, not just deleted) disk is for all normal purposes unreadable. It is true (so I understand) that even wiped disks can be read with the right equipment and the appropriate skills to use it, but this is where risk comes in. What is the risk that someone (more likley an organisation given the costs involved) is going to want to go to the trouble of reading one of your wiped disks? Unless you're a national security risk or a serious criminal I'd have said the risk was somewhere between zero and none.
feetofclay
Active member
well if you really want to get rid of it all at all costs i guess there is always the option of dissolving it in acid, i doubt that would be very readable after that. but a tad risky.