Should I Clear My History Before Sending My Laptop For Repair Reddit

I am unable to power on my Acer laptop, and the technician says the motherboard is faulty. I am planning to sell it. Will the buyer be able to retrieve my data after changing the motherboard? If so, how exercise I erase information technology? Colin

If y'all are literally scrapping an old PC or laptop, you should either remove the hard bulldoze or destroy it to protect your data. People take been known to scavenge hard drives from tips and call back sensitive personal, medical and financial information.

Selling dead machines for spares or repair is even riskier, and how much would your Acer be worth? I doubt information technology volition fetch plenty to make information technology worth spending the fourth dimension and (probably) money needed to erase your data. And, of grade, if you don't do information technology, yous could be at significant financial chance, depending on the information stored on it.

Whether or not the buyer replaces the motherboard, they will probably be able to read your hard drive, unless yous encrypted it with an unhackable countersign. This is unlikely.

Because your laptop won't boot, you will have to do what an assaulter or repairer would do: remove the hard bulldoze from the laptop. However, if you desire to delete your data and reinstall the difficult drive, y'all will need either another PC or a hard disk eraser.

If you have a desktop tower with a spare drive bay, you tin can mount the laptop drive inside, by connecting the power and data cables. This is easy.

If you lot have some other laptop, you can mount it in an external hard drive enclosure, and so connect it to another PC via a USB port.

Hard bulldoze erasers

If you don't have a PC, you could buy a standalone hard bulldoze eraser. This is much the easiest way to erase hard drives, and companies that decommission lots of PCs should think virtually buying 1. Unfortunately, it's not economical to buy one for a single bulldoze. The best known device, the Drive eRazer Ultra, cost about £/$250 when available.

One cheaper alternative is StarTech'south USB Hard Drive Duplicator and Eraser Dock (£51.91), which I plant by searching Amazon. This has ii drive slots, so as well as erasing hard drives and SSDs, it tin can clone them for backup purposes. You can besides utilize information technology continued to a PC.

In theory, you lot could too utilise a degaussing automobile, which uses very stiff magnetic fields to erase all forms of magnetic media – disks and tapes. The Intimus 20000 is a adept instance, and you could purchase one for £35,783.27 or perchance less. Unless you happen to know someone who already has a hard disk degausser, this is probably non an option.

Despite what yous come across in the movies, you can't erase a modern difficult drive using powerful magnets. M&J Magnetics tried and failed. Not even a 3in neodymium magnet costing almost $350 had whatsoever issue on the data. (Note: keep strong magnets abroad from hard drives because they might damage the read/write head and stop the bulldoze from working. Also, remember that neodymium magnets are dangerous.)

You could, of course, but destroy the difficult drive physically, which is what some regime departments adopt. You could, for example, wrap the drive in a cloth (to forbid any bits flying out) and drive a couple of six-inch nails through the platters. However, inquiry drive destruction first, and have all the recommended safety precautions.

Electronic erasure

If you really want to delete files, you have to overwrite the data so that it tin can't be recovered. Photograph: Spectral / Alamy/Alamy

It'due south easy to delete the information on a hard drive in a working PC or in an external USB enclosure. It's non quite so like shooting fish in a barrel to erase it completely. When you delete files, the operating system doesn't erase them, information technology just removes them from its directory. This frees up the sectors for utilise past other programs, so almost of them volition be reused somewhen. Until that happens, someone with an un-erase program tin can locate the data sectors on the hard bulldoze and reconstruct the original file.

If you actually want to delete files, you have to overwrite the information and then that information technology tin't be recovered. This requires multiple over-writes, usually either three or seven. It depends how much security yous need.

There'southward a wide range of free file and deejay erasure programs, including Heidi's Eraser, FreeRaser, Darik's Boot And Nuke (meliorate known every bit DBAN) and Deejay Wipe. I've suggested Heidi's Eraser before, and information technology has some video tutorials.

Saving the Bone

Erasing the whole drive is effective just it also deletes the operating organisation and hidden recovery partitions. This may not be the about useful approach if you are selling a PC, though the buyer can easily reinstall Windows x, if applicative, or an earlier version of Windows if there's a legible product key on the COA (Document of Authenticity) stuck to the case.

In many cases, it's simpler to erase all the files on the drive's active partition (C:) so reinstall the operating system. This will remove all the data that various programs take stashed in their own directories, which yous may not even know about. In particular, information technology will remove whatsoever email files that programs such equally Windows Live Mail, eM Client and Thunderbird have stored on your hard drive. If y'all have any emails that are not backed up, y'all should rescue them before erasing the hard drive.

With Windows Live Post, copy the whole Windows Live Mail folder at C:\Users\Your_ID\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Postal service. The emails are stored every bit separate eml files, so yous can find the folder by searching for those.

In your case, a three-stride arroyo might give reasonable security without wasting too much time and try.

First, with the drive in an external enclosure, run Piriform'due south CCleaner to remove temporary internet files, cache files, log files and other rubbish. Check the root directory (formerly C:) for the hiberfil.sys, pagefile.sys and swapfile.sys files, and if you find them, delete them. 2d, run a disk defragmentation plan – a defragger such equally Auslogic's Disk Defrag Gratis – to compact the remaining files. Finally, use a disk eraser to deeply overwrite the remaining hard drive infinite.

The big security hole in this approach will be any however-working programs that you have allowed to store passwords. You could modify them, simply volition you remember all the ones that demand changing?

If you have a working PC running Windows 8 to 10, you can reset the PC to mill condition. To practise this, run the Settings app (the cogwheel), select Update & Security, click Recover in the left-hand carte du jour, then "Reset this PC". If you are departing with a drive or a PC, you must select "Remove files and clean the bulldoze" to end files from beingness recovered. Plain, this takes longer.

Laptop for repair

Another reader, Ben, asked virtually the security of his personal data when his laptop goes in for repair. The problem is that, unless the whole difficult drive is encrypted with Windows BitLocker, TrueCrypt or a similar program, someone with physical possession of the hard drive can nearly certainly read it. They don't even have to kicking Windows: they can read the drive from a Linux Live CD or USB memory stick. (Windows sets file permissions, but if Windows isn't loaded, the permissions don't hateful annihilation.)

Of course, you can encrypt sensitive files separately, merely not many people practise that, and when a trouble strikes, it may exist besides late …

Modern SSDs are a bit more secure considering they encrypt everything all the time. Yet, the encryption may exist transparent to Windows, so that doesn't necessarily protect you if someone tin can run Windows.

It should be possible to brand a backup and reset the PC before releasing it for repair, then restore your system subsequently you get it back. If y'all have a better idea, please permit me know in the comments below.

Have you got a question? Email information technology to Ask.Jack@theguardian.com

_{This article contains affiliate links to products. Our journalism is independent and is never written to promote these products although we may earn a small committee if a reader makes a purchase.}

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2017/nov/30/laptop-no-longer-works-erase-personal-data-hard-drive-faulty-motherboard

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