There is a freely available tool for windows called TweakUI which has settings to clear up most of the awkward material automagically as it were - do a google search and you should be good to go.
In the past, I've done the following:
1. Manually delete any obviously dodgy files.
2. Delete any obviously dodgy e-mails
3. Delete all cookies and all offline content from IE
4, Search for any files for hidden copies (look for *.jpg and you'll get a list of all JPEGS for example.)
5. Run tweakui and clear up everything.
6. Defragment the hard drive. This step makes it harder to recover any data because bits of the files will be overwrtitten as the disk is reorganised - not foolproof but effective and simple to do.
Short of disposing of the hard disk in a furnace, you can't make it impossible to recover, just not worth the while of an idle techie. In my experience, if there is no obvious porn, they will just follow IT department policy and rebuild the machine with a standard build which will overwrite whatever is left on the disk. Smaller comapnies may just check it over and put it back it the storeroom if it looks okay.
Join the most popular community of UK swingers now
Login
IT Guru sought
last reply
49 replies
2.5k views
11 watchers
0 likes
I refer you back to my comment re magnets..i wasn't kidding..only thing i know of that is guaranteed to well and truly trash a harddisk but still leave it perfectly usable (and a damn sight quicker than fiddling about with utilities).
By the way fascinating fact to make those of you who are not very technical think more carefully about what you keep on your 'puter:
When you "permanently" delete a file in Windows (ie the next step fro sending it to your Waste Basket) the file isn't actually changed at all. All that happens is the first letter of the filename is changed to "?" whichs lets Windows know that the disk space is available for use in the future and that the file shouldn't be listed or indexed. Basically this means that deleted files may be fully recoverable from your computer months after you deleted them!!
Sleep well !!
HertsGuy30s
By the way fascinating fact to make those of you who are not very technical think more carefully about what you keep on your 'puter:
When you "permanently" delete a file in Windows (ie the next step fro sending it to your Waste Basket) the file isn't actually changed at all. All that happens is the first letter of the filename is changed to "?" whichs lets Windows know that the disk space is available for use in the future and that the file shouldn't be listed or indexed. Basically this means that deleted files may be fully recoverable from your computer months after you deleted them!!
Sleep well !!
HertsGuy30s
Orgasminator
Quote by roger743
To remove traces of deleted items you must over write them. This process is very time consuming as every single binary bit must be overridden time and time again. 1's and 0's, 1's and 0's. This makes it impossible for even the most determind to locate it.
Actually, even when overwritten there can be magnetic traces of the old data left on the disc and data can be recovered by someone with enough (a) skill and (b) determination. To ensure complete deletion the area of the disk has to be overwritten several times with specially-formatted data.
Of course, unless MI5 are likely to be getting intimate with your hard disc, this probably isn't worth worrying about.
Its also worth noting that often deleting a file only removes a tiny entry in the index but leaves the data portion of the file intact if not easily accessable... which is how come you can get "un-delete" utilities. I'm not sure, but I was lead to believe that any disk with NTFS (NT, XP, 2000) would overwrite the data portion with 0's but i;m not as convinced as I've seen un-deletes and un-formats for thoes operating systems, but dont know if or how they work, or if there is some hidden key in the registry that needs to be set to do a full delete and not an index delete.
Also remember to either "shift-del" or empty the trash can.... a lot of people dont
Your "auto complete" entries are hidden in the registry... so even if you delete the histroy and the cache you have to remember to remove them or people at the least can see what sites you visit.
Personally, if you have nothng ilegal on the pc, whats the worse they can do? take the piss? if your position is such that being on adult sites is detrimental then (with hind sight) dont do it using a pc that is linked to work etc...
overwriting all the bits in a file with 0's is time consuming and people designing the operating system would consider this pointless, it would take as long to delete a file as it would to save it, if you have 2 hard drives, try copying a large file from one disk to the other, it will take a lot longer than deleting it.
WARNING: getting a bit technical here:
with unix and similar systems, you just reset the inode, the inode is a bit of memory that holds information about a file, part of this information is a memory address that points to the first block of memory where the data is stored. when you delete a file all the data is left intact, but the inode is reset so that the operating system now sees that area of memory as free space and it can store other data there. I beleive that microsoft use the same system of memory control ( I could be wrong about the microsoft kernels' memory management ).
someone might find this interesting, but I doubt it .
thats my computer techy stuff done for the day, I'm off to a party in half an hour, have fun everyone. :cheers:
WARNING: getting a bit technical here:
with unix and similar systems, you just reset the inode, the inode is a bit of memory that holds information about a file, part of this information is a memory address that points to the first block of memory where the data is stored. when you delete a file all the data is left intact, but the inode is reset so that the operating system now sees that area of memory as free space and it can store other data there. I beleive that microsoft use the same system of memory control ( I could be wrong about the microsoft kernels' memory management ).
someone might find this interesting, but I doubt it .
thats my computer techy stuff done for the day, I'm off to a party in half an hour, have fun everyone. :cheers:
Sex God
have a look at noton utilities, it has a wipe info utility. you have to do it manually by seaching your jpegs, mpegs and any other data but it does do an overwrite delete.
it worth getting though for the find & fix errors section, nothing to do with deleting data but i have it on all 5 pc's for about 18 months, run it once each week & have only had 1 windows problem i couldn't fix since- priceless
it worth getting though for the find & fix errors section, nothing to do with deleting data but i have it on all 5 pc's for about 18 months, run it once each week & have only had 1 windows problem i couldn't fix since- priceless
Look, sorry about this but I was just trawling through stuff posted while I was away.
I bought a new computer about a month ago and, well basically, it was a heap of junk. My instinct, reinforced by people here, was that the hard drive was junk. I t crashed nearly every day. The maintenance people showed me how to use F11 to repair it but I lost all my personal information and eventually I got them to come out and do a full repair. Just a replacement hard drive and everything is now fine.
The evening before the guy was due to arrive I realised that my bank account details together with code words, pass words and PIN numbers were on there. So I went through the F11 procedure thinking that this deleted everything.
From this thread. do I understand that if my old hard drive finds it's way onto another computer my password information could be available to somebody able to retrieve it?
Mollie
I bought a new computer about a month ago and, well basically, it was a heap of junk. My instinct, reinforced by people here, was that the hard drive was junk. I t crashed nearly every day. The maintenance people showed me how to use F11 to repair it but I lost all my personal information and eventually I got them to come out and do a full repair. Just a replacement hard drive and everything is now fine.
The evening before the guy was due to arrive I realised that my bank account details together with code words, pass words and PIN numbers were on there. So I went through the F11 procedure thinking that this deleted everything.
From this thread. do I understand that if my old hard drive finds it's way onto another computer my password information could be available to somebody able to retrieve it?
Mollie
To be 100% sure you must change the HD and reinstall the basic software. It's the safest way.
Alternatively, a number of software alternatives which must be done in sequence.
1/ Something like PAL Evidence Eliminator which will clear out cookies, temp internet files, history, autocomplete and so on.
2/ Adaware or Spybot to remove all spyware.
3/ Remove all "non std software", such as those above to clear out the system.
4/ A utility, such as BCwipe, to write "zero's" to all the free spaceon the drive. There are utilities that will write zero's to every sector on the drive, you do not want this otherwise you will loose all data on the disk, only write zero's to the free space
5/ Finally remove BCwipe (or whatever you used){IBM do a prog called wipe taht runs from a floppy, but it only works up to the 8Gb point on the drive)
6/ Defrag the drive.
Alternatively, a number of software alternatives which must be done in sequence.
1/ Something like PAL Evidence Eliminator which will clear out cookies, temp internet files, history, autocomplete and so on.
2/ Adaware or Spybot to remove all spyware.
3/ Remove all "non std software", such as those above to clear out the system.
4/ A utility, such as BCwipe, to write "zero's" to all the free spaceon the drive. There are utilities that will write zero's to every sector on the drive, you do not want this otherwise you will loose all data on the disk, only write zero's to the free space
5/ Finally remove BCwipe (or whatever you used){IBM do a prog called wipe taht runs from a floppy, but it only works up to the 8Gb point on the drive)
6/ Defrag the drive.
Quote by Phoenix
To be 100% sure you must change the HD and reinstall the basic software. It's the safest way.
Alternatively, a number of software alternatives which must be done in sequence.
1/ Something like PAL Evidence Eliminator which will clear out cookies, temp internet files, history, autocomplete and so on.
2/ Adaware or Spybot to remove all spyware.
3/ Remove all "non std software", such as those above to clear out the system.
4/ A utility, such as BCwipe, to write "zero's" to all the free space on the drive. There are utilities that will write zero's to every sector on the drive, you do not want this otherwise you will loose all data on the disk, only write zero's to the free space
5/ Finally remove BCwipe (or whatever you used){IBM do a prog called wipe taht runs from a floppy, but it only works up to the 8Gb point on the drive)
6/ Defrag the drive.
An alternative, which would work to stop the majority of the people out there from getting your details, is to format the hard drive. To do this, insert a windows CD, click on setup and wait until it kicks you out onto a Dos screen (plain black and white). Then type
C:
format c:
: 
Thanks. From what the F11 procedure said when it operated, it said that it formatted the hard drive. I think the hard drive was rubbish anyway so I don't thinkit would go into another computer but I'll change my bank account passwords anyway.
Anything else that might be on there I'm not bothered about.
Thanks
Mollie
Anything else that might be on there I'm not bothered about.
Thanks
Mollie
Casanova
Quote by toolr
Police gather evidence using ghost spaces on the harddrive, this is tottally kept inside the force
These scavanger programs are redilly available. I have a few various ones.
So let me get this straight... Your pc is a works unit that will be going back to your place of employment cause your current works package has ended? If so what where the rules of you having this computer at home? Were you allowd to use it for social items after work hours?
It is impoossible to delete information from your HDD as there is always some magnetic trace. I would suggest that you burn off the data that you wish to keep and format the machine. It would be almost imposible to track where or who had placed the data on the HDD. Find out what make HDD it is most manufacturers have programs that will return your HDD to its new state, part of error detecting software.
If your really bothered burn you info off to disc and turn the power plug round the wrong way while the machine is switched on. End off HDD!
The real question would be would the IT bods be bothered in looking for this information. I would say no as companies usually have little spare capacity and the PC will be formatted by them and on someones desk within the week.
