Giving Laptop back to job - Want to clear data

R

River

Registered User
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Hi,

My girlfriend is starting a new job so has to give back her laptop. There is a lot of personal data on the laptop that she would like erased before she hands it back.

The files are saved all over the place.

Whats the best way to clear data from a laptop?

Is there an easy way to just format the C Drive and delete everything?

thanks
 
One way is to format the drive with a windows disk. I'm assuming it's running Windows XP. In that case get a Windows XP CD and do a re-install. You will need the XP license key. So before you start, download the magical jellybean keyfinder which will find your Xp license key & any other Office keys as well. Copy these or print them off.

Then just stick in the CD, follow the prompts to re-install & re-format.

A quick & dirty method is to just search for anything with a .doc .xls .ppt .txt .tmp etc. file extension and delete.
 
Just formatting does not securely erase traces of data. There are lots of free and commercial tools for doing a secure erasure of a hard disk thus (for all practical purposes) permanently erasing any data stored (including the OS and applications etc.). See here for example:

 [broken link removed]

Bear in mind that your employer may expect to receive the machine back in a usable state (i.e. with the OS and applications installed!).
 
wanderer said:
....
A quick & dirty method is to just search for anything with a .doc .xls .ppt .txt .tmp etc. file extension and delete.
Click to expand...

Deleting files doesn't delete them either. You have to use on of the apps Clubman mentioned. Some of them just wipe free space. So you can leave the OS installed. Though obviously wiping everything inculding the OS is a good idea.
 
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Not too many employers would invest the time into recovering files you deleted. You could also copy some very big files to the HDD to reuse the space you freed up and delete it again, only the very sophisticated stull would get around that.
 
how about just doing this;
A quick & dirty method is to just search for anything with a .doc .xls .ppt .txt .tmp etc. file extension and delete.
Click to expand...

and then doing a defrag? - that might make it more difficult to undelete the files.

I suppose it depends on how important the files are. Would anyone be bothered trying to get them back after you've deleted them? In other words, are they worth anything to anyone else? This should probably determine your deletion strategy.
 
recently employed a specialist data recovery company to recover data from a disk. They retrieved an astonishing amount of stuff - quite unbelieveable really. I would remove the disk and replace it with another blank one if the data is personal / sensitive.
 
1) Delete all files
2) copy the contents of a dvd onto computer (keep copying multiple times until hd is full)


repeat 3 times

no one will be able to get it back then....
 
leghorn said:
how about just doing this;


and then doing a defrag? - that might make it more difficult to undelete the files....
Click to expand...

That doesn't achieve anything. Why are you suggesting this?


leghorn said:
I suppose it depends on how important the files are. Would anyone be bothered trying to get them back after you've deleted them? In other words, are they worth anything to anyone else? This should probably determine your deletion strategy.
Click to expand...

You never know what will happen to a HD. At some point it will leave the company and anything can happen to it then.
 
I agree - if you really want to securely erase the HD contents then do it lock, stock and barrel using one of the secure erasure tools mentioned or linked to earlier. Most of these are as effective as it gets for end users. Anything else leaves open the possibility of data retrieval. If this is not a real concern to you then less rigorous approaches can be considered.
 
jhegarty said:
1) Delete all files
2) copy the contents of a dvd onto computer (keep copying multiple times until hd is full)


repeat 3 times

no one will be able to get it back then....
Click to expand...

As Clubman says using secure erasure tools are easier than copying DVD's and use random data which a DVD isn't. That said the data is still being overwritten which is the main thing. But why do it the hard way?
 
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