firefighting Posted June 3, 2009 Posted June 3, 2009 I have a pc that was use for school office and want to recycle it for reuse in the school. I don't want to completely erase/format the machine.... just remove any way or trace confidential files from being recovered. Is there any suggestion for preparing the PC back for use without the complete erase. Many thanks
speckytecky Posted June 3, 2009 Posted June 3, 2009 Drive Erase Pro Nova Development Drive Erase Pro review - IT Reviews seems to do a pretty thorough job. However, there is some thought that even using something as thorough as that there is always a chance that data could be retrieved. 1
elsiegee40 Posted June 3, 2009 Posted June 3, 2009 If the machine is to be reused within school, it would be worth asking how great the data risk is. I would be more concerned if the machine was going outside school. If the machine is to be networked, you can tie it down very thoroughly using group policy to stop people nosing. If it is not to be networked, yhen you need to password protect the admin accounts on it and create a restricted privileges account that will enable the machine to be used while preventing wider access to data and installation of software. 1
LeMarchand Posted June 3, 2009 Posted June 3, 2009 Eraser is free and can be set to wipe any unused disk areas. Will take a while depending on how large the area to be wiped is and how many passes you use. 2
ricki Posted June 3, 2009 Posted June 3, 2009 The only way to garentee that no one gets the data is to smash the hard drive to bit. The next best to to zero the hard drive one or more times depending on who important the data is. There is no way of 100% removing files but you could delete the file, empty the recycle bin and use a program that wipes the free space like Download Smart Data Scrubber 3.4 Free Trial - Wipe data making its restoring impossible I would not advice this but its better than nothing. Richard
firefighting Posted June 3, 2009 Author Posted June 3, 2009 Eraser is free and can be set to wipe any unused disk areas. Will take a while depending on how large the area to be wiped is and how many passes you use. This is just what I was after Big thanks
mac_shinobi Posted June 3, 2009 Posted June 3, 2009 SDelete - SDelete Sysinternals Forums - My handy sdelete scripts - Page 1 SDelete is a command line utility that takes a number of options. In any given use, it allows you to delete one or more files and/or directories, or to cleanse the free space on a logical disk. SDelete accepts wild card characters as part of the directory or file specifier. Usage: sdelete [-p passes] [-s] [-q] sdelete [-p passes] [-z|-c] [drive letter] -c Zero free space (good for virtual disk optimization). -p passes Specifies number of overwrite passes. -s Recurse subdirectories. -q Don’t print errors (quiet). -z Cleanse free space.
ICT_GUY Posted June 3, 2009 Posted June 3, 2009 File Shredder Empty space shred, one pass FTW, DOD will take days. Its free too. do this after you have deleted every last trace of stuff you want to loose. Run CCleaner too before you wipe the clear space.
firefighting Posted June 3, 2009 Author Posted June 3, 2009 The drive has to be wiped using tools run from an OS separate from that on the disk to be erased. (Does that make sense?) Every byte of the drive must be wiped, so that rules out running tools from the disk while an OS remains installed. You really must use a bootable CD to run the erase tools. I'm not explaining things too well - must be near lunctime! You explainded it very well and it makes perfect sense. No problem runing from boot except, are there any apps out that just to cleans the dirve without having to reinstall the OS and HW drivers?
chrbb Posted June 3, 2009 Posted June 3, 2009 I've used eraser before, if you delete everything bar the os it will fill all free space with zeros, which would save having to reinstall the os. But, I would be more concerned that when the computer is finally disposed of it will be forgotten that it was orginally an ex office machine that may still have sensitive data that could be recovered. Unless of course you do what I do when disposing of old computers - cut the hardrives into quarters!
Michael Posted June 3, 2009 Posted June 3, 2009 I have a pc that was use for school office and want to recycle it for reuse in the school. I don't want to completely erase/format the machine.... just remove any way or trace confidential files from being recovered. Is there any suggestion for preparing the PC back for use without the complete erase. Many thanks To be honest I would still recommend you wipe the machine fully and start again. Chances are that when you re-install Windows and you re-install all applications the school use it should be more than all your data put together, so will most likely be overwritten. This by any means isn't a guarantee, but is a high probability.
Sylv3r Posted June 3, 2009 Posted June 3, 2009 Slightly off topic - but you will need to bare PAT testing in mind before I would use it in the school - especially if it is a few years old etc, just to cover your back more than anything else. 1
mac_shinobi Posted June 3, 2009 Posted June 3, 2009 That's what dban is for - before getting rid of them that is
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