Tips on removing files before selling laptop?
Discussion
Im selling my laptop as Ive used it three times in the last 18 months, just deleting files as I go... any tips on where to look. I think Ive deleted just about everything, but am sure Ive left a papertrail behind.
My biggest concern is getting my windows messenger account deleted. I use it all day every day for business. If the new owner logs in, then I wont be able to talk to anyone or log in myself. Ive removed msn messenger, but cant see where/how to delete my myname@hotmail.com from windows messenger, the "click here to sign in" option remains there zzz
Help, anyone?
My biggest concern is getting my windows messenger account deleted. I use it all day every day for business. If the new owner logs in, then I wont be able to talk to anyone or log in myself. Ive removed msn messenger, but cant see where/how to delete my myname@hotmail.com from windows messenger, the "click here to sign in" option remains there zzz
Help, anyone?
If you're selling it with an OS license then fdisk and either reinstall the OS yourself, or leave them to do it. You'll probably find it's an easier sell if you install the OS yourself. This'll also have the advantage that the clean PC will be blisteringly fast compared to a dirty one.
If you're selling it without an OS license then fdisk and let them get on with it.
Windows OS license should consist of the paper certificate or sticker, plus the installation media.
I wouldn't ever sell a PC that has held personally identifiable information, without reformatting the disk.
If you're selling it without an OS license then fdisk and let them get on with it.
Windows OS license should consist of the paper certificate or sticker, plus the installation media.
I wouldn't ever sell a PC that has held personally identifiable information, without reformatting the disk.
If you want to be confident your data can't be restored then you need to use a specialist HDD wiping application. Darik's Boot and Nuke will do the trick nicely - simply create the floppy disk, boot from it and follow the instructions. This will wipe the HDD entirely using algorithms approved by the US Department of Defence, much the same as file shredding software mentioned above, except the entire HDD is covered. Then just reinstall the OS on the blank HDD and you have a machine that, as much as anything can be, is guaranteed to be clean.
Just shredding particular files is not enough if you data is really sensitive because of the way Windows uses the paging file, etc. which means that sensitive information cab be stored all over the HDD.
Hope this helps.
Just shredding particular files is not enough if you data is really sensitive because of the way Windows uses the paging file, etc. which means that sensitive information cab be stored all over the HDD.
Hope this helps.
Edited by roadsweeper on Tuesday 6th June 16:12
roadsweeper said:
CommanderJameson said:
mattley said:
aldi said:
I'd just bung the system restore disks in, restore back to zero...
The can be no ther way.
Thirded. It's the only way to be truly sure you're not letting your "gentleman's pictures" go to the buyer.
No it's not! See my previous post!
Yes, it is. No-one wants to see your "exotic literature" to the point where they'll fork over £250 consultation fee and then between £700-£infinity for data recovery. (I recently got a quote from OnTrack. Let's just say you need to really, really want your data back to use their services.)
While you're correct that data can theoretically be recovered in pretty much all circumstances that don't involve the physical destruction of the disk, reformatting and reinstalling the operating system will provide a more than adequate level of protection for someone flogging a laptop.
Sensible paranoia is good. Excessive paranoia leads to tinfoil hats.
GreenV8S said:
If you're selling it with an OS license ... the clean PC will be blisteringly fast compared to a dirty one.
I decided this would be best in the end. egomeister said:
Just out of interest bob, what spec is the laptop and what are you looking for it? I may be interested if its the right deal - mail me offline if you like. Steve
Im almost certainly selling it to a friend, but thanks for the offer. Its a vaio, 1.4ghz, 30gig, 256mb iirc. What would a fair price be do you think? In the wrong hands, my laptop could have brought down a few businesses with the various passwords in half a dozen programs, FTP details, emails, cached pages, msn logs, text and doc files, zip files, etc. Just want absolute peace of mind whoever gets the laptop.
I decided to do a system resore in the end as the machine is more than likely going to this friend of mine, and her main complaint is that her old P3 laptop is far too slow and a fresh install has proved to be the best route! Never done a sys restore before, but it was a piece of cake. PC is now twice as fast, and it actually worked
which was a nice surprise!! 
CommanderJameson said:
roadsweeper said:
CommanderJameson said:
mattley said:
aldi said:
I'd just bung the system restore disks in, restore back to zero...
The can be no ther way.
Thirded. It's the only way to be truly sure you're not letting your "gentleman's pictures" go to the buyer.
No it's not! See my previous post!
Yes, it is.
No, I'm afraid you're wrong. I agree on the point that you always make a call based on just how secure you would want to be. Personally, since it is so trivial to do, I always use this method on my PCs and laptop but that's because I use them for work and the nature of what I do means they hold very sensitive information. For a personal PC I would probably format and restore as proposed earlier. However, the fact remains that it isn't, "the only way to be truly sure you're not letting your 'gentleman's pictures' go to the buyer" as I suggested a perfectly viable alternative. That's what I was picking you up on.
pdV6 said:
neil_cardiff said:
Podie said:
Even if it's rebuilt, you'd be surprised what you can recover.. 
The easiest way:
Buy a new harddrive for it.
"most secure" rather than "easiest" I'd say...
I've got some pretty funky tools that conform to US and UK govt specs for secure data removal.. which don't involve
either! Podie said:
Even if it's rebuilt, you'd be surprised what you can recover..
I've done this a few times using a variety of utilities and agree that even with a rebuild data can still be recovered with software on a home PC. I think people tend to think this is much harder than it is and requires specialist hardware, but that is far from always being the case. Podie said:
I've got some pretty funky tools that conform to US and UK govt specs for secure data removal.. which don't involve either!
either! Darik's Boot and Nuke that I linked to above is excellent for this kind of application, but obviously not for deletion of individual files for which I use PGP. What tools do you use?
My company (Cantarus) offer three different services (secure file deletion, degaussing and destruction) for data cleansing which illustrates how hard it can be to really destroy data (i.e. so that even forensic hardware has no chance). Of course, this is for pretty specialist needs!
CommanderJameson said:
roadsweeper said:
CommanderJameson said:
mattley said:
aldi said:
I'd just bung the system restore disks in, restore back to zero...
The can be no ther way.
Thirded. It's the only way to be truly sure you're not letting your "gentleman's pictures" go to the buyer.
No it's not! See my previous post!
Yes, it is. No-one wants to see your "exotic literature" to the point where they'll fork over £250 consultation fee and then between £700-£infinity for data recovery. (I recently got a quote from OnTrack. Let's just say you need to really, really want your data back to use their services.)
While you're correct that data can theoretically be recovered in pretty much all circumstances that don't involve the physical destruction of the disk, reformatting and reinstalling the operating system will provide a more than adequate level of protection for someone flogging a laptop.
Sensible paranoia is good. Excessive paranoia leads to tinfoil hats.
Someone paying maybe even a couple of grand for the kit to allow them to recover data for less legitimate reasons could recover those costs pretty quickly by buying in laptops's, harvesting any data that can be recovered, selling on the PC (so pretty much zero cost there), and making whatever illicit use of the data they choose. And of course anyone with such low moral standards probably wouldn't pay retail for the equipment either. Disgruntled empoyee of a data recovery company with a profitable sideline processing notebooks off ebay? I'd opt for paranoia and tinfoil hats personally.
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