ThinkPad finally shipped...

There are free programs that do a simple write-over of empty space with FF. This is enough to thwart common data recovery tools. If I remember, I'll see what's on my work computer. When I left my old job, I scrubbed my hard drives. Those same tools will do a much better scrub where they write over the free space multiple times with random data if you think someone will do a fancy recovery of data.

Beware, if you used this machine for accessing password protected accounts (banking, email, ...), Windows likes to store these passwords. I have seen a tool in action pull out all sorts of fun password data. Why Windows does this is baffling. If this is so, clear off the old drive and reinstall the OS and programs she needs. Windows is really a dangerous OS when it comes to security.

BTW John, there are everyday tools to bring back deleted files, including freeware on Sourceforge. I've done this many times to get back accidentally deleted files on crashed drives and servers.

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Mark

Simple tools can still recover data. Jim is worried about the computer getting into the hands of someone who has these tools. Heck, a ten years ago my work colleague wrote up a low-level disk reader in an evening so we could recover some data off a buggered drive. The new tools make this really easy. You need to scrub the free space after reloading the OS.

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Mark

Only writing once is not enough for folks with really expensive tools. However, it is probably enough for Jim's scenario.

Nothing but project work on this machine. Even old Reson files ;-)

You have to ask? Bill envisions himself Emperor ;-)

...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

Correct. A new system installation probably won't reach sectors containing old data that lie beyond the old system's footprint. That data will still be readable.

Others have suggested writing one big file until the disk is full and then deleting it. That'll probably do the job. The best will still be a utility that does a write to every sector.

--
Paul Hovnanian     mailto:Paul@Hovnanian.com
------------------------------------------------------------------
Our bombs are smarter than the average high school student.
At least they can find Kuwait. - A. Whitney Brown

There are plenty of bootable CDs (e.g. probably "Ultimate Boot CD" with utilities that will wipe everything well enough that the drive itself would be unable to read any data from the disk, and any other method that possibly might get some data from the disk would be very costly indeed.

You will then have to re-install the OS and software.

Any method that does not involve wiping the OS is in my opinion more risky because it would rely on knowing where the OS does / does not store user data, which I think would be very hard to know with confidence.

Chris

[snip]

Someone else suggested writing gibberish to the disk. I suppose Vista qualifies. ;-)

--
Paul Hovnanian     mailto:Paul@Hovnanian.com
------------------------------------------------------------------
IRS: We\'ve got what it takes to take what you\'ve got.

Better to scrub the WHOLE disk BEFORE reinstalling the OS - this would be more thorough and probably quicker too. It can be hard to figure out all the weird places your data will end up - swap space, system directories, slack space in between the end of a file and the end of the last sector of that file, etc. etc.

Chris

Jim, I've used BPS Data Shredder before.

To do a simple overwrite of free space will take an hour or so. It was easy to use.

Aloha, Mark

But his clients competitors have deep pockets ;)

Thanks, Mark! I'll check it out.

...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 | |

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

Sophisticated laptop thieves?

RL

If you've still got an old copy of Norton Utilities, it will do that for you.

RL

I don't work client files on a laptop. Either it's on their machine or on a dedicated hard drive that's bootable and goes to the client to dispose of as they wish.

RL

[...many trivial suggestions skipped...]

....and in the addition to deleting all relevant files and overwriting the empty space, you have to clean up MFT(s), system restore records and wipe out swap file(s).

After all, why do you need all that bother with relocating all of the stuff to a new computer? I am pretty sure there will be the sw compatibility issues also.

Why can't you just give her a new ThinkPad so everybody will be happy?

Vladimir Vassilevsky

DSP and Mixed Signal Design Consultant

Vladimir Vassilevsky antispam snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com posted to alt.binaries.schematics.electronic:

There may be family complexities here, it is obviously not an issue if Jim can afford a brand new laptop. Youth are typically rather blase about computer security and privacy. Most professionals have had that naivety burned out of us rather thoroughly.

CleanUp! might be worth looking at.

--
Tony Williams.

In message , Jim Thompson writes

Killdisk (freeware version unless you're *really* paranoid) and then rebuild it with the restore disks if you have them. That way she doesn't end up with a laptop that's got a ton of useless (to her!) stuff on the disk, in the registry, the windows directory and all over the disk generally and anyone who steals it is unlikely to try to recover stuff unless they targeted the machine specifically for that purpose, at which point, if your stuff is that valuable, then you really shouldn't be putting your granddaughter at risk by giving it to her.

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Clint Sharp

boot knoppix (or other live linux) and do

cat /dev/urandom > /dev/hda

that'll trash the hard disk contents, requiring a full reinstall of the OS.

for a less robust solution erase the files you want to be rid of, empty the trash, and make a text file called eraseme.bat as follows, and run it.

copy /b eraseme.bat+eraseme.bat eraseme.too copy /b eraseme.too+eraseme.too eraseme.bat This will fill the space once used by the deleted data with mindless drivel and leave you with a full hard drive and two files that need deleting.

Bye. Jasen