John Rumm writes:

On 11/07/2012 12:05, Windmill wrote:
John Rumm writes:

However one thing to keep in mind, is that even with a whole unit
warranty, its not always cost effective to use it. I had someone bring
me about a prebuilt system which had suffered a PSU failure. The company
that supplied it were happy to fix it under warranty, but it had to be
sent back at the customers expense, and also they claimed it would be
restored to default configuration - hence the would need to do a full
backup first and then restore it when the machine came back.

So their choice was jump through the backup and restore hoops, pay for
sending it away, lose it for a few days into the bargain, and then doing
a full restore on it after it comes back, or pay for me to swap the PSU
for them on the spot! They decided the latter carried less risk and
hassle (although I did persuade them to do the backup anyway!)

The VGA output on my cheap PC (intended to be fitted to the back of a
TV, though at the moment I have no TV) just died, so I now have a
similar choice.

Force the case apart, voiding the warranty, and try to repair
whatever's broken without any information or circuit diagram.

The "easy" fix would be to just add a new video card into an expansion
slot, and ignore the onboard one.

It has no slots, nor any kind of standard case. It's maybe 1.5 inches
thick, really intended to be mounted on the back of a TV, and the case
has no screws; Googling tells me that it fits together with plastic
tabs which are likely to break if pried apart (someone did this to add
more memory).
So it seems plain that opening it up would void the warranty.
(Emachines ER1401).

Or try to find some way to erase all the data from the HDD.

In situations like this I usually use a USB to IDE/SATA adaptor lead.
Pop the side off the case and plug my adaptor into the drive. Power it
up using the PCs power supply if it still works, or a standalone drive
PSU if not, and then talk to the drive directly from a laptop.

Boot the laptop from something like the universal boot CD, and run a
drive erase program.

This PC was used briefly for on-line banking, and while there are
passwords there, they're not bank passwords because I enter those from
memory.

But I don't really know what the manufacturer's repair people might be
able to glean from an assortment of Linux distributions and browsers,
and while I'm sure most will be honest, I'm equally sure that a few
will not be. (What might you expect from someone who might for all I
know have a large mortgage and a wife who's just been laid off?).

As with all these situations, its a case of deciding on the value of
your data to your "enemy" and estimating their resources for getting at
it. In this case it seems you need to protect against casual snooping,
and anyone finding sensitive personal information that may have resale
value for credit card fraud, or ID theft. A basic secure erase that
overwrites all the data on the drive would seem adequate.

(while recovery of data from an overwritten drive is possible, it
requires very specialist kit, lots of time, money, and determination. So
unless you are doing stuff that would interest spook agencies, you
probably have nothing to worry about!)

If the PC's HDMI output still works and can be used to drive the DVI
input on this monitor via an adaptor, it should be possible to erase
the HDD (no, there are no questionable pictures on it!).

Or if I can set up a memory stick with an OS which allows remote access
of some kind, then by typing 'blind' can boot that OS, it should be
possible to erase the HDD remotely from another PC.

First of all I need to do the backup I hadn't done 'cos it was a new PC
and I was waiting until I had finally chosen what to run on it.

Then I can send the unit for repair.

or swap out the drive for another....

I've suddenly realised how desirable it is to use encrypted file
systems, instead of just encrypted directories for a few of the more
obviously sensitive bits of information.

--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
J.R.R. Tolkien:- @ O n e t e l . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost