chucklehead

I have a couple of old computers which I would like to donate to something/someone. I know just putting things in the recycle bin and deleting is not enough. I don't want to have any of our personal info on it when I donate it. Does anyone know the proper way to delete all our information so as to be able to donate it without worry?

Geoff_the_Beard

There is an excellent utility called DBAN (Darik's Boot And Nuke) available for free download. Be careful to put that on a diskette or CD, and keep that away from any normal data. It WILL completely destroy any data on any computer it is used in!

Dban is used by most computer professionals in the recycling sector to "wipe" old hard disks.

Download it from here: http://dban.sourceforge.net/

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Geoff_the_Beard

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chucklehead

Thank you for the welcome and the advice. It is appreciated. Would you say I shouldn't try downloading it on a computer we use to avert any problems and only download it on the one we are getting rid?

Geoff_the_Beard

It doesn't greatly matter where you download it to, but as soon as you've created a diskette copy (see their instructions) I thoroughly recommend you delete it from your computer, so there can be no chance of anyone running it just to see what it is! If it is reasonably convenient to download it to the one you are getting rid of, that would avoid the risk, because you are going to wipe everything from that.

I would also recommend that you don't keep the diskette with any others you have, but after you've used it seal it in an envelope that has a suitable warning message!

When it runs, it auto-detects ALL hard disks installed on the computer, and wipes them all so thoroughly that they CANNOT be recovered! That is a fairly slow process, because it does multiple passes ensuring that nothing remains. Depending on the size of the hard disks it can take several hours.

If you need any further advice I shall be in and out a lot this weekend, but I should be able to get back to you quite quickly.

Good luck!

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Nancy

On Favorite of the day !!!

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sc_tigergirl

I've always formatted out the hard drive & this implant the system files for booting back up the hard drive taking everything else off. Then, I had install Windows 98 back on it. and add the name of the person I was giving it to.

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Geoff_the_Beard

That's better than doing nothing, but formatting doesn't actually remove the data that was on there previously, it just makes it more difficult to see. Those with the right knowledge would still be able to read almost everything of yours that was on there before the formatting.

Dban works by writing "gibberish" all over the previous data (and empty spaces). Even that would, in certain circumstances, still allow some data to be read, so it repeatedly writes different random gibberish making any data totally unrecoverable.

Whilst it is unlikely that any crook would imagine that your computer might have information that would be valuable enough to him to take the trouble of "unformatting" your disk, were the disk be believed to have come from a bank, for example, a crook might want to see if he could find lots of account details! Crooks generally won't know where a disk came from, so he might take the trouble anyway, to see what he might find. I expect there ARE details on your disk that you wouldn't want others to see.

I wasn't meaning you specifically, Tiger. Almost everyone has details that they want to keep private, such as passwords that are used to access bank accounts or credit cards, especially if they have ever done any online shopping or banking.

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MissDeb

How about recycling a computer or any electronic piece?! I have an extremely old computer and some old televisions (no longer operational) that I REALLY need to get outta my home. Don't want to put them in the land fill.....whatta I do?
I will just smash up the hard drive of the computer before recycling....but then what do I do with THAT (the smashed hard drive)

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sc_tigergirl

if they are in working order. You could always donate to Churches whom help people who are in need.

If you know anybody who enjoys working on computers. They may could use the parts out of the old one.

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