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ThinkPad finally shipped...

I just got a notice that my ThinkPad has finally shipped.

I promised my old Sony Vaio to a granddaughter.

What is recommended to scrub it of client files and PSpice?

I wouldn't want proprietary information to fall into the wrong hands if she lost it.

...Jim Thompson

-- | James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | | | E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat | |

formatting link
| 1962 | America: Land of the Free, Because of the Brave

Reply to
Jim Thompson
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Replacing the hard drive should do the trick.

Reply to
miso

Delete the files and defrag it; that's probably good enough.

There are commercial disk wipers that write all over the drive to really lose stuff, but how many laptop thieves have sophisticated data recovery tools?

She doesn't want to run pspice?

John

Reply to
John Larkin

I don't know. She's really good at math ;-)

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
         America: Land of the Free, Because of the Brave
Reply to
Jim Thompson

install ultrasentry(from the guys that make ultraedit32) and run wipe freespace?

-Lasse

Reply to
langwadt

Aha! I LOVE UltraEdit!

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
         America: Land of the Free, Because of the Brave
Reply to
Jim Thompson

Now that the whole world knows about it, you'd better scrub the disk, and then tell the world again.

-- Joe

Reply to
J.A. Legris

I can't get the "world" to even come here for a free party. Why would the "world" seek out that laptop?

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
         America: Land of the Free, Because of the Brave
Reply to
Jim Thompson

Jim Thompson wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

fdisk , format c:

----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==----

formatting link
The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups

----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----

Reply to
me

I don't want to remove everything.

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
         America: Land of the Free, Because of the Brave
Reply to
Jim Thompson

No. All that does is rewrite the partition data, file allocation tables, etc. Data sectors will be marked as empty but not overwritten and can be read with low level tools.

--
Paul Hovnanian     mailto:Paul@Hovnanian.com
------------------------------------------------------------------
Porsche 928: 0 to c in 2.125 years, 2.435 light-years per mile^3 of gas
Reply to
Paul Hovnanian P.E.

Because before today, only you and a few others were aware of the "proprietary information" on that laptop. Now Google is aware of the laptop, the existence of the information, the incomplete erasure, and your granddaughter. Throw in a well-motivated industrial spy and it sounds like a cakewalk...

-- Joe

Reply to
J.A. Legris

I initially thought no, then it dawned, format D:, which is where all the data is.

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
         America: Land of the Free, Because of the Brave
Reply to
Jim Thompson

me wrote

Jim Thomps>I initially thought no,

Your initial impulse was correct.

...and when someone runs an UNFORMAT utility on it??

I'm sure your clients won't be happy unless you use a DoD-compliant WIPE utility on it. (OVERWRITE the data with gibberish).

"Darik's Boot and Nuke" is widely used. There are other choices--many free (GPL):

formatting link

Reply to
JeffM

Who made the hard drive? Some of the manufacturers have free software on their sites to wipe unused areas and deleted data.

If yo don't know who made the drive, download and run "Belarc Advisor" to find out. It also displays a lot of other useful information about a computer, including the software registartion keys. You can get it here:

formatting link 

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I\'ve got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida
Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

"Paul Hovnanian P.E." wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@hovnanian.com:

Sure, it rewrites partition data and FATs. The reloading writes on the disk. More than adequate for giving to granddaughter....

----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==----

formatting link
The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups

----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----

Reply to
me

"Jim Thompson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

How about the delete key?

Reply to
TT_Man 

--
Norton "Wipedisk".
Reply to
John Fields

I'll tell you what, you do that to a disk (not too large, say, not over 100 GB) send it to me and i will recover it and sent it back to you along with a backup on DVD's. If i get over 95% of the data back, you ship the disk back to me as prize. Mind, the only security measure you use is "fidsk, format c:". This also assumes that the disk was not encrypted in the first place.

--
 JosephKK
 Gegen dummheit kampfen die Gotter Selbst, vergebens.  
  --Schiller
Reply to
joseph2k

A Linux Live boot disk, assuming it has a CD. You boot Linux live, and write 0's to all your hard drives, then write 1's to all your hard drives, then write '0xA' to your hard drives, then write 5's to your hard drives, then write 0's to your hard drives twice more.

Actually, if you're not worried about Homeland Security, just booting Linux Live and doing

$ dd if=/dev/null of=/dev/hda

would do it.

Of course, you'd then have to install something. ;-)

How about test Vista and give us a report? >:->

Have Fun! Rich

Reply to
Rich Grise

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