Safe to Sell????

Kiwi_too wrote:

mlts22 wrote:
I'd consider booting the tablet, logging on, installing a free space wipe utility (there are several on the Play Store), letting that do its job, then doing a factory reset/erase again (to erase your account data.)

That way, any data that is left behind would be overwritten.

On newer tablets, if you have root, you can use a utility called LagFix which issues a TRIM command, completely and utterly erasing any data that was deleted with no chance of recovery. It does the same thing as a free space wipe, but a lot quicker.

x2
Reset to default does not actually wipe the memory.

No......but get yourself a big fat strong magnet and run it over a few time and that will do it.

BTW, I don't think most who either sale or donate used computers actually take the time to securely delete personal info from storage devices. Many just do a full format, same as a quick format with surface scan, and assume their personal data is safe. Some even re-partition the HD to free space. Both do little to actually prevent personal info from being recovered.

In fact, I bought a used external USB hard drive that the owner both re-partitioned and re-formatted. Out of curiosity, I wanted to see if any files could be recovered.

I was able to recover over a thousand files. Many family photos and some pdf and doc files. Enough so that I could assume that the previous owner was an engineer.

An easy way to prevent this, not to mention the quickest way to securely delete the contents, is to encrypt the files. Then, when you don't need it anymore, just delete the hard drive contents. You're done. Any files recovered is just garbage of unintelligible characters without the encryption key. This also saves a huge amount of time from securely wiping the drive after the fact.

First of all, Android mobile devices are not synonymous to a PC with a conventional HD. What you can do, assuming you haven't done so already, is to encrypt your Android tablet under Settings>Security. Once done, just do a factory reset. You should be done.

Apple mobile devices do this automatically. They encrypt personal data by default. When you do a reset, it just securely erases the device encryption key. It doesn't need to secure erase the data as its unintelligible anyway. In fact, I liked this idea so much that I've setup a similar environment with all my desktop and notebooks.

Kiwi_too wrote:

mlts22 wrote:
I'd consider booting the tablet, logging on, installing a free space wipe utility (there are several on the Play Store), letting that do its job, then doing a factory reset/erase again (to erase your account data.)

That way, any data that is left behind would be overwritten.

On newer tablets, if you have root, you can use a utility called LagFix which issues a TRIM command, completely and utterly erasing any data that was deleted with no chance of recovery. It does the same thing as a free space wipe, but a lot quicker.

x2
Reset to default does not actually wipe the memory.

X3 and when you do an final reset do a "hard" reset to wipe it out. If it does not tell you how to do this in the manual search for the process for this tablet online.

mlts22 wrote:
I'd consider booting the tablet, logging on, installing a free space wipe utility (there are several on the Play Store), letting that do its job, then doing a factory reset/erase again (to erase your account data.)

That way, any data that is left behind would be overwritten.

On newer tablets, if you have root, you can use a utility called LagFix which issues a TRIM command, completely and utterly erasing any data that was deleted with no chance of recovery. It does the same thing as a free space wipe, but a lot quicker.

x2
Reset to default does not actually wipe the memory.

I'd consider booting the tablet, logging on, installing a free space wipe utility (there are several on the Play Store), letting that do its job, then doing a factory reset/erase again (to erase your account data.)

That way, any data that is left behind would be overwritten.

On newer tablets, if you have root, you can use a utility called LagFix which issues a TRIM command, completely and utterly erasing any data that was deleted with no chance of recovery. It does the same thing as a free space wipe, but a lot quicker.