Giving Laptop to Brother

[2chiefsRus]

I have read through pages of stuff about wiping, erasing, multiple passes, etc. when donating laptop. If I just delete my "sensitive" files, then fill the hard drive to capacity by copying things I don't care about over and over again into other sub-directories - won't that effectively make the sensitive data unrecoverable because it has been rewritten over?

Then I can just go back and delete the other sub-directories?

I was hoping to not have to reload all the programs that I already have loaded onto it for him.

By the way, I don't worry about my brother possibly having any "sensitive" data but I do have a small concern that he might lose the laptop.

[1492]

mlts22 wrote:
If you are lazy, pop a command prompt, type in "cipher /w:c:", and let it do its three passes. Result: All free space wiped with zeroes, ones, then random numbers. This works in all versions of Windows since XP.

The forum software reserves some character combos for smileys as you may on occasion discover. :B The erase free space command should be cipher /w:c: assuming that the drive you want free space permanently erased is C:. Make sure to run the command prompt as administrator.

So basically, just delete any files you don't want to leave on your hard drive. Then run the cipher command. This should be more than adequate as your brother is the recipient of your laptop. 🙂

In the future, you may want to setup your personal files in a way that would make permanently erasing them unnecessary. I took a hint from my former Apple iOS mobile device in which personal data is encrypted. When you reset the device, iOS essentially removes the encryption key. Much faster than overwriting the data.

You can place your personal files in an encrypted virtual container using a free open source app such as TrueCrypt, which encrypts/decrypts data in real-time. When you want to get rid of it, just delete the container. Even if the container was recovered, it's just random data without the required encryption key.

[mlts22]

If you are lazy, pop a command prompt, type in "cipher /w:c:", and let it do its three passes. Result: All free space wiped with zeroes, ones, then random numbers. This works in all versions of Windows since XP.

If you want to completely erase a drive, there is a free utility called DBAN, where you can download the ISO, make a CD, boot it, and have it erase all drives.

In a past job when re-purposing equipment, I'd use a utility called HDDErase (which is a low-level erase that tells the disk controller to erase all sectors), then followed that up by a three-pass DBAN run. Unless I had data that is worth millions, that did the job with making data inaccessible.

I also encrypt all hard disks that my PC uses with BitLocker. Subsequently, a Windows format command will detect a BitLocker protected volume, and actively scrub/destroy the areas where the master key is stored so even if someone had the right password later on, it wouldn't get access. This means that for all intents and purposes, the disk is as clean as it gets once I do a format (although I do a cipher /w on the drive for good measure.)

[wittmeba]

As Tom suggests CCleaner has a multiple wipe process.

Start the program - select Tools/Drive Wiper/Complex Overwrite (7 passes) - set the drive(s) and click Wipe.

[Tom_M1]

Go to http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner and download CCleaner. There is an option in CCleaner under Tools / Drive Wiper where you can choose to wipe free space. You can also select how thorough to wipe the free space.

[naturist]

That's a LOT of work. Having a Mac, I can't speak about the details for Winders users, but for Macs there are utilities that can do a secure delete of files, and I'll bet similar utilities exist for Winders, but I don't know where you'd go to get them. Oh, wait, try searching versiontracker.com.

[2chiefsRus]

Alfred622 wrote:
To be totally secure,you do need to wipe your disk before giving it to someone else unless you had encrypted your personal data.

This is a good article on disk wiping. I use dBan myself with good results. PC Mag Article on Disk Wiping

But even in the article it says - all the data is still there and UNLESS IT IS OVERWRITTEN, it can still be recoverable. Doesn't filling the computer to capacity with other stuff, mean that the sensitive data has been OVERWRITTEN?

[Alfred622]

To be totally secure,you do need to wipe your disk before giving it to someone else unless you had encrypted your personal data.

This is a good article on disk wiping. I use dBan myself with good results. PC Mag Article on Disk Wiping