Hi,

Under my desk at home I have 3 perfectly servicable but low spec XP PC's
which have been long dismissed by my children as of any use (and I only
use them as a footrest)

....but they are perfectly serviceable.

I'm inclined to give them away to somebody who might appreciate
them...but I am hesitant to do so without some degree of confidence that
all possible personal information has been purged.

I can easily locate and delete all mail accounts, logs, applications and
documents that could be deemed personal.....but how to I delete the
deleted files irreversibly?

I could do a low level format, and reinstall the OS on each machine but
it's honestly not worth the effort.

There seem to be numerous utilities and applications out there that
could help...but I have no inclination to spend money on solving the
problem.

Does anyone know of a Freeware app of some kind that I should consider
using to "wipe" my HDD's without a full reformat?




D

Vortex7 wrote:
Hi,

Under my desk at home I have 3 perfectly servicable but low spec XP PC's
which have been long dismissed by my children as of any use (and I only
use them as a footrest)

....but they are perfectly serviceable.

I'm inclined to give them away to somebody who might appreciate
them...but I am hesitant to do so without some degree of confidence that
all possible personal information has been purged.

I can easily locate and delete all mail accounts, logs, applications and
documents that could be deemed personal.....but how to I delete the
deleted files irreversibly?

I could do a low level format, and reinstall the OS on each machine but
it's honestly not worth the effort.

There seem to be numerous utilities and applications out there that
could help...but I have no inclination to spend money on solving the
problem.

Does anyone know of a Freeware app of some kind that I should consider
using to "wipe" my HDD's without a full reformat?




D
Safest way is a hammer

Malcolm

Does anyone know of a Freeware app of some kind that I should consider
using to "wipe" my HDD's without a full reformat?

Look up DBAN, does what it says on the tin...

Vortex7 wrote:
Hi,

Under my desk at home I have 3 perfectly servicable but low spec XP PC's
which have been long dismissed by my children as of any use (and I only
use them as a footrest)

...but they are perfectly serviceable.

I'm inclined to give them away to somebody who might appreciate
them...but I am hesitant to do so without some degree of confidence that
all possible personal information has been purged.

I can easily locate and delete all mail accounts, logs, applications and
documents that could be deemed personal.....but how to I delete the
deleted files irreversibly?

I could do a low level format, and reinstall the OS on each machine but
it's honestly not worth the effort.

There seem to be numerous utilities and applications out there that
could help...but I have no inclination to spend money on solving the
problem.

Does anyone know of a Freeware app of some kind that I should consider
using to "wipe" my HDD's without a full reformat?



Yep. Its called a club hammer.

You install the disk on a concrete slab and apply the club hammer.

Alternatively, just don't worry about it.




D

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Vortex7 wrote:
Hi,

Under my desk at home I have 3 perfectly servicable but low spec XP
PC's which have been long dismissed by my children as of any use (and
I only use them as a footrest)

...but they are perfectly serviceable.

I'm inclined to give them away to somebody who might appreciate
them...but I am hesitant to do so without some degree of confidence
that all possible personal information has been purged.

I can easily locate and delete all mail accounts, logs, applications
and documents that could be deemed personal.....but how to I delete
the deleted files irreversibly?

I could do a low level format, and reinstall the OS on each machine
but it's honestly not worth the effort.

There seem to be numerous utilities and applications out there that
could help...but I have no inclination to spend money on solving the
problem.

Does anyone know of a Freeware app of some kind that I should consider
using to "wipe" my HDD's without a full reformat?



Yep. Its called a club hammer.

You install the disk on a concrete slab and apply the club hammer.

Alternatively, just don't worry about it.


uk.d-i-y

Nah. An angle grinder is the weapon of choice.

/uk.d-i-y

"Vortex7" wrote in message
...
Hi,

Under my desk at home I have 3 perfectly servicable but low spec XP PC's
which have been long dismissed by my children as of any use (and I only
use them as a footrest)

...but they are perfectly serviceable.

I'm inclined to give them away to somebody who might appreciate them...but
I am hesitant to do so without some degree of confidence that all possible
personal information has been purged.

I can easily locate and delete all mail accounts, logs, applications and
documents that could be deemed personal.....but how to I delete the
deleted files irreversibly?

I could do a low level format, and reinstall the OS on each machine but
it's honestly not worth the effort.

There seem to be numerous utilities and applications out there that could
help...but I have no inclination to spend money on solving the problem.

Does anyone know of a Freeware app of some kind that I should consider
using to "wipe" my HDD's without a full reformat?

D

You don't need to do anything spectacular. You can use a number of
programmes to just write zeros to your old discs.

You can use Acronis: but I'm not sure if the free version will do this - the
pay for version is well worth having though and if you are backing up your
system properly you may already have it; and Eseus Partition manager does
all sorts and is very handy if you ever want to reorganise your discs,
especially after buying a new one.

Spybot SD which you may already have, has a secure shredder, you can use if
you want to keep the operating system but obliterate selected files and
directories. There are plenty of similar tools.
http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm

JKDefrag is another handy tool which you can operate with quite a selection
of switches to defrag and reorder your drives.

The chances are the old hard drives will be too small and slow for being the
main drive any more but you might get yourself external usb enclosures for
them and use them for backing up pictures and the like.

S

"Vortex7" wrote in message
...
Hi,

Under my desk at home I have 3 perfectly servicable but low spec XP PC's
which have been long dismissed by my children as of any use (and I only
use them as a footrest)

...but they are perfectly serviceable.

I'm inclined to give them away to somebody who might appreciate them...but
I am hesitant to do so without some degree of confidence that all possible
personal information has been purged.

I can easily locate and delete all mail accounts, logs, applications and
documents that could be deemed personal.....but how to I delete the
deleted files irreversibly?

I could do a low level format, and reinstall the OS on each machine but
it's honestly not worth the effort.

There seem to be numerous utilities and applications out there that could
help...but I have no inclination to spend money on solving the problem.

Does anyone know of a Freeware app of some kind that I should consider
using to "wipe" my HDD's without a full reformat?

If you can be 100% sure you have deleted all the personal files (don't
forget the temp files in c:\windows\temp
C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Local Settings\Temp

then empty the bin

Then download and install this freeware eraser
http://eraser.heidi.ie/

You can erase specific files, or do a wipe of the free space on the disk by
simply right clicking on the drive in "My Computer"

To be 100% sure, I would always erase the entire disk and then reinstall
windows, or wipe the whole disk, and then leave that up to the person you
donate the machine to, otherwise you will probably get "You know that
machine you gave me, well after downloading 1000GB of crap, allong with 500
toolbars for internet explorer, it is going really slowly, will you come and
fix it please, as it is obviously your fault for giving it to me"

Toby...

In article ,
Vortex7 writes:
Hi,

Under my desk at home I have 3 perfectly servicable but low spec XP PC's
which have been long dismissed by my children as of any use (and I only
use them as a footrest)

...but they are perfectly serviceable.

I'm inclined to give them away to somebody who might appreciate
them...but I am hesitant to do so without some degree of confidence that
all possible personal information has been purged.

I can easily locate and delete all mail accounts, logs, applications and
documents that could be deemed personal.....but how to I delete the
deleted files irreversibly?

Physically destroy the drive platters.
You could boot a unix of some type and clear the drives from there
well enough that no one is going to go to enough effort to recover
them, but I wouldn't trust any DOS/Windows tools to do that.

I could do a low level format, and reinstall the OS on each machine but
it's honestly not worth the effort.

You can't low level format IDE drives. (You could do it to the first
IDE drives, but consumers trying to do so turned them into warm bricks,
so the drives have long since been designed to ignore attempts to do so.)

There seem to be numerous utilities and applications out there that
could help...but I have no inclination to spend money on solving the
problem.

Does anyone know of a Freeware app of some kind that I should consider
using to "wipe" my HDD's without a full reformat?

I would boot a unix/linux CD live distro, and then use it to write
zeros to the whole drive, which is likely to be "good enough" to stop
anyone spending time trying to get data off your drives, and move on
to someone else's drives instead which haven't been zapped. (It's not
good enough in a commercial environment.)

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Vortex7 wrote:
Hi,

Under my desk at home I have 3 perfectly servicable but low spec XP PC's
which have been long dismissed by my children as of any use (and I only
use them as a footrest)

...but they are perfectly serviceable.

I'm inclined to give them away to somebody who might appreciate
them...but I am hesitant to do so without some degree of confidence that
all possible personal information has been purged.

I can easily locate and delete all mail accounts, logs, applications and
documents that could be deemed personal.....but how to I delete the
deleted files irreversibly?

I could do a low level format, and reinstall the OS on each machine but
it's honestly not worth the effort.

There seem to be numerous utilities and applications out there that could
help...but I have no inclination to spend money on solving the problem.

Does anyone know of a Freeware app of some kind that I should consider
using to "wipe" my HDD's without a full reformat?



Yep. Its called a club hammer.

You install the disk on a concrete slab and apply the club hammer.

Alternatively, just don't worry about it.

D

If you do decide to destroy hard drives you might want to check out the
numerous utube etc strip down techniques for getting at the niobium magnets,
which are extremely powerful - but brittle - and seem to be quite sought
after by d-i-yers... (Unless it's all a big spoof...)

S

Andrew May wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Vortex7 wrote:
Hi,

Under my desk at home I have 3 perfectly servicable but low spec XP
PC's which have been long dismissed by my children as of any use (and
I only use them as a footrest)

...but they are perfectly serviceable.

I'm inclined to give them away to somebody who might appreciate
them...but I am hesitant to do so without some degree of confidence
that all possible personal information has been purged.

I can easily locate and delete all mail accounts, logs, applications
and documents that could be deemed personal.....but how to I delete
the deleted files irreversibly?

I could do a low level format, and reinstall the OS on each machine
but it's honestly not worth the effort.

There seem to be numerous utilities and applications out there that
could help...but I have no inclination to spend money on solving the
problem.

Does anyone know of a Freeware app of some kind that I should
consider using to "wipe" my HDD's without a full reformat?



Yep. Its called a club hammer.

You install the disk on a concrete slab and apply the club hammer.

Alternatively, just don't worry about it.


uk.d-i-y

Nah. An angle grinder is the weapon of choice.

/uk.d-i-y

Good point. Car body filler might work as well.

On Thu, 07 Oct 2010 15:05:33 +0100, Vortex7 wrote:

Hi,

Under my desk at home I have 3 perfectly servicable but low spec XP PC's
which have been long dismissed by my children as of any use (and I only
use them as a footrest)

...but they are perfectly serviceable.

I'm inclined to give them away to somebody who might appreciate
them...but I am hesitant to do so without some degree of confidence that
all possible personal information has been purged.

I can easily locate and delete all mail accounts, logs, applications and
documents that could be deemed personal.....but how to I delete the
deleted files irreversibly?

I could do a low level format, and reinstall the OS on each machine but
it's honestly not worth the effort.

There seem to be numerous utilities and applications out there that
could help...but I have no inclination to spend money on solving the
problem.

Does anyone know of a Freeware app of some kind that I should consider
using to "wipe" my HDD's without a full reformat?

http://www.killdisk.com/

--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

*lightning protection* - a w_tom conductor

On Thu, 07 Oct 2010 16:21:53 +0100, Spamlet wrote:

You don't need to do anything spectacular. You can use a number of
programmes to just write zeros to your old discs.

Which is not enough if people are determined.

--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

*lightning protection* - a w_tom conductor

"Bob Eager" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 07 Oct 2010 16:21:53 +0100, Spamlet wrote:

You don't need to do anything spectacular. You can use a number of
programmes to just write zeros to your old discs.

Which is not enough if people are determined.

--
But who is that determined outside a police forensics lab?
I have hundreds of old floppy discs, that have loads of stuff I spent ages
writing, on them, but even I haven't got the patience to convert them from
one windows version to another (one reason you might actually need to keep
an old pc or two - XP won't read Windows 98 even!). Then there are hundreds
of tapes, and video tapes... It typically takes me several hours to
retrieve and convert a couple of cassettes: as for sifting through old hard
drives for fragments of files - especially of the email dbx/pst variety:
I'll leave that up to MI5, and the poor buggers who have to monitor Echelon
and other such monstrosities - who probably have all your email already in
any case - and your phone calls, shopping transactions, movements, etc etc.

S

Spamlet wrote:
"Bob Eager" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 07 Oct 2010 16:21:53 +0100, Spamlet wrote:

You don't need to do anything spectacular. You can use a number of
programmes to just write zeros to your old discs.
Which is not enough if people are determined.

--
But who is that determined outside a police forensics lab?
I have hundreds of old floppy discs, that have loads of stuff I spent ages
writing, on them, but even I haven't got the patience to convert them from
one windows version to another (one reason you might actually need to keep
an old pc or two - XP won't read Windows 98 even!). Then there are hundreds
of tapes, and video tapes... It typically takes me several hours to
retrieve and convert a couple of cassettes: as for sifting through old hard
drives for fragments of files - especially of the email dbx/pst variety:
I'll leave that up to MI5, and the poor buggers who have to monitor Echelon
and other such monstrosities - who probably have all your email already in
any case - and your phone calls, shopping transactions, movements, etc etc.


precisely

Just writing a disk full of crap is enough.

And, I certainly would not use a 5 year old disk expet in an emergency
anyway.

Ship without disk drives.



S

"Vortex7" wrote in message
...
Hi,

Under my desk at home I have 3 perfectly servicable but low spec XP PC's
which have been long dismissed by my children as of any use (and I only
use them as a footrest)

...but they are perfectly serviceable.

I'm inclined to give them away to somebody who might appreciate them...but
I am hesitant to do so without some degree of confidence that all possible
personal information has been purged.

I can easily locate and delete all mail accounts, logs, applications and
documents that could be deemed personal.....but how to I delete the
deleted files irreversibly?

I could do a low level format, and reinstall the OS on each machine but
it's honestly not worth the effort.

There seem to be numerous utilities and applications out there that could
help...but I have no inclination to spend money on solving the problem.

Does anyone know of a Freeware app of some kind that I should consider
using to "wipe" my HDD's without a full reformat?

A format wont delete the data so you need something better.

I have several utilities (free on cover disks) that will make it a lot
harder to recover the data but the only real way to be 100% sure is to burn
the disks or something equally as drastic.
It just depends on what the data is.
If its not very critical there are secure file erasers that overwrite the
file a few dozen times to make it hard (but not impossible) to get the data
back.

On 07/10/10 15:05, Vortex7 wrote:
Hi,

Under my desk at home I have 3 perfectly servicable but low spec XP PC's
which have been long dismissed by my children as of any use (and I only
use them as a footrest)

...but they are perfectly serviceable.

I'm inclined to give them away to somebody who might appreciate
them...but I am hesitant to do so without some degree of confidence that
all possible personal information has been purged.

I can easily locate and delete all mail accounts, logs, applications and
documents that could be deemed personal.....but how to I delete the
deleted files irreversibly?

I could do a low level format, and reinstall the OS on each machine but
it's honestly not worth the effort.

There seem to be numerous utilities and applications out there that
could help...but I have no inclination to spend money on solving the
problem.

Does anyone know of a Freeware app of some kind that I should consider
using to "wipe" my HDD's without a full reformat?



If you can boot linux off a liveCD or USB drive, "wipe" is a command
that will scrub the disk (warning - remapped or other user-inaccessible
sectors will not be wiped).

On 07/10/10 17:55, Spamlet wrote:
"Bob wrote in message
...
On Thu, 07 Oct 2010 16:21:53 +0100, Spamlet wrote:

You don't need to do anything spectacular. You can use a number of
programmes to just write zeros to your old discs.

Which is not enough if people are determined.

--
But who is that determined outside a police forensics lab?

If we're getting into the "mount disk platters in a funky machine and
use loads or physics to read residual magnetic patterns on a fully
rewritten disk" I have to ask if the police are even geared up for this?

MI(5,6) perhaps - otherwise possibly a very specialist service that teh
police might sub contract from...

I have hundreds of old floppy discs, that have loads of stuff I spent ages
writing, on them, but even I haven't got the patience to convert them from
one windows version to another (one reason you might actually need to keep
an old pc or two - XP won't read Windows 98 even!). Then there are hundreds
of tapes, and video tapes... It typically takes me several hours to
retrieve and convert a couple of cassettes: as for sifting through old hard
drives for fragments of files - especially of the email dbx/pst variety:
I'll leave that up to MI5, and the poor buggers who have to monitor Echelon
and other such monstrosities - who probably have all your email already in
any case - and your phone calls, shopping transactions, movements, etc etc.

S

"Vortex7" wrote in message
...
Hi,

Under my desk at home I have 3 perfectly servicable but low spec XP PC's
which have been long dismissed by my children as of any use (and I only
use them as a footrest)

...but they are perfectly serviceable.

I'm inclined to give them away to somebody who might appreciate them...but
I am hesitant to do so without some degree of confidence that all possible
personal information has been purged.

I can easily locate and delete all mail accounts, logs, applications and
documents that could be deemed personal.....but how to I delete the
deleted files irreversibly?

I could do a low level format, and reinstall the OS on each machine but
it's honestly not worth the effort.

There seem to be numerous utilities and applications out there that could
help...but I have no inclination to spend money on solving the problem.

Does anyone know of a Freeware app of some kind that I should consider
using to "wipe" my HDD's without a full reformat?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSQim...eature=related

In article , dennis@home
scribeth thus


"Vortex7" wrote in message
...
Hi,

Under my desk at home I have 3 perfectly servicable but low spec XP PC's
which have been long dismissed by my children as of any use (and I only
use them as a footrest)

...but they are perfectly serviceable.

I'm inclined to give them away to somebody who might appreciate them...but
I am hesitant to do so without some degree of confidence that all possible
personal information has been purged.

I can easily locate and delete all mail accounts, logs, applications and
documents that could be deemed personal.....but how to I delete the
deleted files irreversibly?

I could do a low level format, and reinstall the OS on each machine but
it's honestly not worth the effort.

There seem to be numerous utilities and applications out there that could
help...but I have no inclination to spend money on solving the problem.

Does anyone know of a Freeware app of some kind that I should consider
using to "wipe" my HDD's without a full reformat?

A format wont delete the data so you need something better.

I have several utilities (free on cover disks) that will make it a lot
harder to recover the data but the only real way to be 100% sure is to burn
the disks or something equally as drastic.
It just depends on what the data is.
If its not very critical there are secure file erasers that overwrite the
file a few dozen times to make it hard (but not impossible) to get the data
back.


Nah!, you don't wanna to go to all that trouble!.

Just burn a few Max Bygraves LP's onto the old drives at full linear PCM
rate, that'll see the new user deleting and re formatting and
overwriting in no time at all!....
--
Tony Sayer

Yep. Its called a club hammer.

You install the disk on a concrete slab and apply the club hammer.

Alternatively, just don't worry about it.


uk.d-i-y

Nah. An angle grinder is the weapon of choice.

/uk.d-i-y

Good point. Car body filler might work as well.

Gas axe....

On 07/10/2010 15:05, Vortex7 wrote:
Hi,

Under my desk at home I have 3 perfectly servicable but low spec XP PC's
which have been long dismissed by my children as of any use (and I only
use them as a footrest)

...but they are perfectly serviceable.

I'm inclined to give them away to somebody who might appreciate
them...but I am hesitant to do so without some degree of confidence that
all possible personal information has been purged.

I can easily locate and delete all mail accounts, logs, applications and
documents that could be deemed personal.....but how to I delete the
deleted files irreversibly?

I could do a low level format, and reinstall the OS on each machine but
it's honestly not worth the effort.

There seem to be numerous utilities and applications out there that
could help...but I have no inclination to spend money on solving the
problem.

Does anyone know of a Freeware app of some kind that I should consider
using to "wipe" my HDD's without a full reformat?




D

Personally, if I give away an old machine, I simply do a re-install.

I boot from the OS install disk, delete the existing partition, create a
new partition, format it, and install to that.

I leave the machine with a clean install of the OS, with the latest SP
on it, and all updates to the point where it leaves my hands. Also all
drivers for all hardware are downloaded, and installed. The driver
downloads are left in a drivers folder.

I don't install any apps.

I don't bother with forensic over-writes, that's overkill for the risks
I'm assessing.

--
Ron

On 07/10/2010 17:05, Bob Eager wrote:
On Thu, 07 Oct 2010 16:21:53 +0100, Spamlet wrote:

You don't need to do anything spectacular. You can use a number of
programmes to just write zeros to your old discs.

Which is not enough if people are determined.


In theory, yes. In practice, a good wiper which writes random patterns
lots of times will do the deed. Perhaps a dozen iterations.

If you're really paranoid a gas axe is the only solution. Get the
platters hot enough and they cease to be magnetic.

Andy

On Thu, 07 Oct 2010 20:47:14 +0100, Andy Champ wrote:

On 07/10/2010 17:05, Bob Eager wrote:
On Thu, 07 Oct 2010 16:21:53 +0100, Spamlet wrote:

You don't need to do anything spectacular. You can use a number of
programmes to just write zeros to your old discs.

Which is not enough if people are determined.


In theory, yes. In practice, a good wiper which writes random patterns
lots of times will do the deed. Perhaps a dozen iterations.

That was my point. I wouldn't stop at one load of zeros. Repeated reads
(thousands if not more) have been shown to get something off.

--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

*lightning protection* - a w_tom conductor

On 7 Oct 2010 19:57:38 GMT, Bob Eager wrote:

On Thu, 07 Oct 2010 20:47:14 +0100, Andy Champ wrote:

On 07/10/2010 17:05, Bob Eager wrote:
On Thu, 07 Oct 2010 16:21:53 +0100, Spamlet wrote:

You don't need to do anything spectacular. You can use a number of
programmes to just write zeros to your old discs.

Which is not enough if people are determined.


In theory, yes. In practice, a good wiper which writes random patterns
lots of times will do the deed. Perhaps a dozen iterations.

That was my point. I wouldn't stop at one load of zeros. Repeated reads
(thousands if not more) have been shown to get something off.

What an awful lot of bother for a few dirty pictures.... :-)

--
Frank Erskine

On 07/10/10 21:12, Frank Erskine wrote:
On 7 Oct 2010 19:57:38 GMT, Bob wrote:

On Thu, 07 Oct 2010 20:47:14 +0100, Andy Champ wrote:

On 07/10/2010 17:05, Bob Eager wrote:
On Thu, 07 Oct 2010 16:21:53 +0100, Spamlet wrote:

You don't need to do anything spectacular. You can use a number of
programmes to just write zeros to your old discs.

Which is not enough if people are determined.


In theory, yes. In practice, a good wiper which writes random patterns
lots of times will do the deed. Perhaps a dozen iterations.

That was my point. I wouldn't stop at one load of zeros. Repeated reads
(thousands if not more) have been shown to get something off.

What an awful lot of bother for a few dirty pictures.... :-)


Could have saved Gary Glitter some trouble...

(With no inference to the OP!!!)

Malcolm wrote:
Vortex7 wrote:
Hi,

Under my desk at home I have 3 perfectly servicable but low spec XP
PC's which have been long dismissed by my children as of any use (and
I only use them as a footrest)

....but they are perfectly serviceable.

I'm inclined to give them away to somebody who might appreciate
them...but I am hesitant to do so without some degree of confidence
that all possible personal information has been purged.

I can easily locate and delete all mail accounts, logs, applications
and documents that could be deemed personal.....but how to I delete
the deleted files irreversibly?

I could do a low level format, and reinstall the OS on each machine
but it's honestly not worth the effort.

There seem to be numerous utilities and applications out there that
could help...but I have no inclination to spend money on solving the
problem.

Does anyone know of a Freeware app of some kind that I should consider
using to "wipe" my HDD's without a full reformat?




D
Safest way is a hammer

Malcolm

No,Angle grinder.

D

Personally, if I give away an old machine, I simply do a re-install.

I boot from the OS install disk, delete the existing partition, create a
new partition, format it, and install to that.

I leave the machine with a clean install of the OS, with the latest SP
on it, and all updates to the point where it leaves my hands. Also all
drivers for all hardware are downloaded, and installed. The driver
downloads are left in a drivers folder.

I don't install any apps.

I don't bother with forensic over-writes, that's overkill for the risks
I'm assessing.




Being paranoid, I'm leaning towards dbanning the disks and reinstalling
the OS; or for that matter simply giving the machines away with the
original OS disks and license code. I really did not want to do this.

I note it's a free listing weekend on eBay, so if I get round to it I
can list one for 1p and see what happens.

Re HDD magnets I can verify they are fantastic for magnetizing
screwdrivers. Beware though if you stick one to the fridge you need a
screwdriver to prize it off.


D

"F Murtz" wrote in message
...
Malcolm wrote:
Vortex7 wrote:
Hi,

Under my desk at home I have 3 perfectly servicable but low spec
XP
PC's which have been long dismissed by my children as of any use
(and
I only use them as a footrest)
SNIP
Does anyone know of a Freeware app of some kind that I should
consider
using to "wipe" my HDD's without a full reformat?




D
Safest way is a hammer

Malcolm

No,Angle grinder.

You laugh about angle grinders, but in the early years of computers I
was involved with one on a high security military site where the disk
had to be replaced, and the old one erased. They insisted on physical
destruction of the platter - this was a 20" diameter disc with 100
heads on either side. It went under armed military escort to the
factory where they tried to cut it up with oxy-actylene. When they
found it was nickel plated brass and not steel (oxy not much use for
brass) out came the angle grinder!!!!

AWEM

On Thu, 07 Oct 2010 18:06:17 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Spamlet wrote:
"Bob Eager" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 07 Oct 2010 16:21:53 +0100, Spamlet wrote:

You don't need to do anything spectacular. You can use a number of
programmes to just write zeros to your old discs.
Which is not enough if people are determined.

--
But who is that determined outside a police forensics lab?
I have hundreds of old floppy discs, that have loads of stuff I spent ages
writing, on them, but even I haven't got the patience to convert them from
one windows version to another (one reason you might actually need to keep
an old pc or two - XP won't read Windows 98 even!). Then there are hundreds
of tapes, and video tapes... It typically takes me several hours to
retrieve and convert a couple of cassettes: as for sifting through old hard
drives for fragments of files - especially of the email dbx/pst variety:
I'll leave that up to MI5, and the poor buggers who have to monitor Echelon
and other such monstrosities - who probably have all your email already in
any case - and your phone calls, shopping transactions, movements, etc etc.


precisely

Just writing a disk full of crap is enough.

It's probably already got Windows installed.

And, I certainly would not use a 5 year old disk expet in an emergency
anyway.

Ship without disk drives.

I've got quite a few PCs lying around now, all with missing disk
drives 'cos everyone's too paranoid to pass them on. Maybe this is a
conspiracy to get us to keep buying new drives?
--
(\__/) M.
(='.'=) Due to the amount of spam posted via googlegroups and
(")_(") their inaction to the problem. I am blocking some articles
posted from there. If you wish your postings to be seen by
everyone you will need use a different method of posting.

No,Angle grinder.

You laugh about angle grinders, but in the early years of computers I
was involved with one on a high security military site where the disk
had to be replaced, and the old one erased. They insisted on physical
destruction of the platter - this was a 20" diameter disc with 100
heads on either side. It went under armed military escort to the
factory where they tried to cut it up with oxy-actylene. When they
found it was nickel plated brass and not steel (oxy not much use for
brass) out came the angle grinder!!!!

AWEM


I thought there was going to be a tale there of a firing squad for the
Execution of a hard drive;!..
--
Tony Sayer

In article , Vortex7
ernibles.com scribeth thus

D

Personally, if I give away an old machine, I simply do a re-install.

I boot from the OS install disk, delete the existing partition, create a
new partition, format it, and install to that.

I leave the machine with a clean install of the OS, with the latest SP
on it, and all updates to the point where it leaves my hands. Also all
drivers for all hardware are downloaded, and installed. The driver
downloads are left in a drivers folder.

I don't install any apps.

I don't bother with forensic over-writes, that's overkill for the risks
I'm assessing.




Being paranoid, I'm leaning towards dbanning the disks and reinstalling
the OS; or for that matter simply giving the machines away with the
original OS disks and license code. I really did not want to do this.

I note it's a free listing weekend on eBay, so if I get round to it I
can list one for 1p and see what happens.

Re HDD magnets I can verify they are fantastic for magnetizing
screwdrivers. Beware though if you stick one to the fridge you need a
screwdriver to prize it off.


D


Just -what- have you go on there?...
--
Tony Sayer

On 08/10/2010 10:23, tony sayer wrote:
In ,
ernibles.com scribeth thus

D

Personally, if I give away an old machine, I simply do a re-install.

I boot from the OS install disk, delete the existing partition, create a
new partition, format it, and install to that.

I leave the machine with a clean install of the OS, with the latest SP
on it, and all updates to the point where it leaves my hands. Also all
drivers for all hardware are downloaded, and installed. The driver
downloads are left in a drivers folder.

I don't install any apps.

I don't bother with forensic over-writes, that's overkill for the risks
I'm assessing.




Being paranoid, I'm leaning towards dbanning the disks and reinstalling
the OS; or for that matter simply giving the machines away with the
original OS disks and license code. I really did not want to do this.

I note it's a free listing weekend on eBay, so if I get round to it I
can list one for 1p and see what happens.

Re HDD magnets I can verify they are fantastic for magnetizing
screwdrivers. Beware though if you stick one to the fridge you need a
screwdriver to prize it off.


D


Just -what- have you go on there?...

No smut I can assure you...but the footprints of my children are all
over them.

I would rather not their personal info, phone pics, chat logs or
anything else leaves the house with the hardware.

D

In article , Vortex7
ernibles.com scribeth thus
On 08/10/2010 10:23, tony sayer wrote:
In ,
ernibles.com scribeth thus

D

Personally, if I give away an old machine, I simply do a re-install.

I boot from the OS install disk, delete the existing partition, create a
new partition, format it, and install to that.

I leave the machine with a clean install of the OS, with the latest SP
on it, and all updates to the point where it leaves my hands. Also all
drivers for all hardware are downloaded, and installed. The driver
downloads are left in a drivers folder.

I don't install any apps.

I don't bother with forensic over-writes, that's overkill for the risks
I'm assessing.




Being paranoid, I'm leaning towards dbanning the disks and reinstalling
the OS; or for that matter simply giving the machines away with the
original OS disks and license code. I really did not want to do this.

I note it's a free listing weekend on eBay, so if I get round to it I
can list one for 1p and see what happens.

Re HDD magnets I can verify they are fantastic for magnetizing
screwdrivers. Beware though if you stick one to the fridge you need a
screwdriver to prize it off.


D


Just -what- have you go on there?...

No smut I can assure you...but the footprints of my children are all
over them.

I would rather not their personal info, phone pics, chat logs or
anything else leaves the house with the hardware.

D


Seen what some of them put on facebook these days!...
--
Tony Sayer

"Mark" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 07 Oct 2010 18:06:17 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Spamlet wrote:
"Bob Eager" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 07 Oct 2010 16:21:53 +0100, Spamlet wrote:

You don't need to do anything spectacular. You can use a number of
programmes to just write zeros to your old discs.
Which is not enough if people are determined.

--
But who is that determined outside a police forensics lab?
I have hundreds of old floppy discs, that have loads of stuff I spent
ages
writing, on them, but even I haven't got the patience to convert them
from
one windows version to another (one reason you might actually need to
keep
an old pc or two - XP won't read Windows 98 even!). Then there are
hundreds
of tapes, and video tapes... It typically takes me several hours to
retrieve and convert a couple of cassettes: as for sifting through old
hard
drives for fragments of files - especially of the email dbx/pst variety:
I'll leave that up to MI5, and the poor buggers who have to monitor
Echelon
and other such monstrosities - who probably have all your email already
in
any case - and your phone calls, shopping transactions, movements, etc
etc.


precisely

Just writing a disk full of crap is enough.

It's probably already got Windows installed.

And, I certainly would not use a 5 year old disk expet in an emergency
anyway.

Ship without disk drives.

I've got quite a few PCs lying around now, all with missing disk
drives 'cos everyone's too paranoid to pass them on. Maybe this is a
conspiracy to get us to keep buying new drives?
--
M

We have to, because they keep making the OS and all the progs, and files
bigger and bigger.
Old ones are too small for anything. Even the sd card in my blackberry, the
size of my fingernail, holds more stuff than most of the hard drives I've
had!

S

On 07/10/2010 19:26, brass monkey wrote:
wrote in message
...
Hi,

Under my desk at home I have 3 perfectly servicable but low spec XP PC's
which have been long dismissed by my children as of any use (and I only
use them as a footrest)

...but they are perfectly serviceable.

I'm inclined to give them away to somebody who might appreciate them...but
I am hesitant to do so without some degree of confidence that all possible
personal information has been purged.

I can easily locate and delete all mail accounts, logs, applications and
documents that could be deemed personal.....but how to I delete the
deleted files irreversibly?

I could do a low level format, and reinstall the OS on each machine but
it's honestly not worth the effort.

There seem to be numerous utilities and applications out there that could
help...but I have no inclination to spend money on solving the problem.

Does anyone know of a Freeware app of some kind that I should consider
using to "wipe" my HDD's without a full reformat?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSQim...eature=related

Nice teeth, shame about the body :-)

Dave

"
You laugh about angle grinders, but in the early years of computers I
was involved with one on a high security military site where the disk
had to be replaced, and the old one erased. They insisted on physical
destruction of the platter - this was a 20" diameter disc with 100
heads on either side. It went under armed military escort to the
factory where they tried to cut it up with oxy-actylene. When they
found it was nickel plated brass and not steel (oxy not much use for
brass) out came the angle grinder!!!!

AWEM

Curious - as I've not used oxy-acetylene - what happens with brass: I would
have thought very hot nasty flame would soon melt or burn brass?

(I bet, later all the gen from the new one went home on the train in
someone's flash drive...)

S

Dave wrote:
On 07/10/2010 19:26, brass monkey wrote:
wrote in message
...
Hi,

Under my desk at home I have 3 perfectly servicable but low spec XP PC's
which have been long dismissed by my children as of any use (and I only
use them as a footrest)

...but they are perfectly serviceable.

I'm inclined to give them away to somebody who might appreciate
them...but
I am hesitant to do so without some degree of confidence that all
possible
personal information has been purged.

I can easily locate and delete all mail accounts, logs, applications and
documents that could be deemed personal.....but how to I delete the
deleted files irreversibly?

I could do a low level format, and reinstall the OS on each machine but
it's honestly not worth the effort.

There seem to be numerous utilities and applications out there that
could
help...but I have no inclination to spend money on solving the problem.

Does anyone know of a Freeware app of some kind that I should consider
using to "wipe" my HDD's without a full reformat?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSQim...eature=related

Nice teeth, shame about the body :-)


very expensive angle grinder.

Dave

"Spamlet" wrote in message
...

"Mark" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 07 Oct 2010 18:06:17 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Spamlet wrote:
"Bob Eager" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 07 Oct 2010 16:21:53 +0100, Spamlet wrote:

You don't need to do anything spectacular. You can use a number of
programmes to just write zeros to your old discs.
Which is not enough if people are determined.

--
But who is that determined outside a police forensics lab?
I have hundreds of old floppy discs, that have loads of stuff I spent
ages
writing, on them, but even I haven't got the patience to convert them
from
one windows version to another (one reason you might actually need to
keep
an old pc or two - XP won't read Windows 98 even!). Then there are
hundreds
of tapes, and video tapes... It typically takes me several hours to
retrieve and convert a couple of cassettes: as for sifting through old
hard
drives for fragments of files - especially of the email dbx/pst
variety:
I'll leave that up to MI5, and the poor buggers who have to monitor
Echelon
and other such monstrosities - who probably have all your email already
in
any case - and your phone calls, shopping transactions, movements, etc
etc.


precisely

Just writing a disk full of crap is enough.

It's probably already got Windows installed.

And, I certainly would not use a 5 year old disk expet in an emergency
anyway.

Ship without disk drives.

I've got quite a few PCs lying around now, all with missing disk
drives 'cos everyone's too paranoid to pass them on. Maybe this is a
conspiracy to get us to keep buying new drives?
--
M

We have to, because they keep making the OS and all the progs, and files
bigger and bigger.
Old ones are too small for anything. Even the sd card in my blackberry,
the size of my fingernail, holds more stuff than most of the hard drives
I've had!

S


In the loft I have my Apple Macintosh SE/30 which in the late 80's cost me
over a grand. A regular PC at the time, with windows 3.1 may have been
£400. The Mac won hands down on usability back then.

It had a 40MB HDD and 2M RAM, with a teeny black/white screen.

Upgrading to a 200M HDD cost me ~£200 as I recall. I shudder to think on
what I spent on other upgrades.

You have to give credit to Steve Jobs (even with a long break) for the
vision to make Apple successful. I read they are now the second largest
company on the planet (after Exxon Mobil).

On Fri, 08 Oct 2010 09:04:52 +0100, Andrew Mawson wrote:
You laugh about angle grinders, but in the early years of computers I
was involved with one on a high security military site where the disk
had to be replaced, and the old one erased. They insisted on physical
destruction of the platter - this was a 20" diameter disc with 100 heads
on either side. It went under armed military escort to the factory where
they tried to cut it up with oxy-actylene. When they found it was nickel
plated brass and not steel (oxy not much use for brass) out came the
angle grinder!!!!

You just needed dirt (I saved the following tale from classiccmp many
years ago, so time of actual event would be close on 30 years now):


Probably over 15 years ago, NorthStar offered a 14 inch hard drive in an
external cabinet for use with the 'Horizon' microcomputers. It was
amusing to watch with the top of the enclosure off as the entire unit was
enclosed in a slightly smoked brown Plexiglass 'bubble'.

The down side was that the sector wheel/transducer/tachometer assembly was
external to the sealed housing and frequently caused "sector not found"
errors as dust collected on it. This required regular (monthly or so)
cleaning which required removal of the HDA from the external enclosure in
order to access the bottom of the assembly. (quickly rectified by our
staff after a couple of calls by using a 'nibbler' tool to add a 2"x3"
opening on the bottom of the external enclosure that we could access the
assembly through)

It was also noted in one of the service bulletins that since this assembly
also served as the tachometer for the spindle drive, that you could tell
if the wheel was becoming dirty by a "surging" sound coming from the unit
even if you did not experience sector errors. Little did we know...

We had one customer who tended to keep his system up 24x7 since he had an
external sales staff that used the system to file orders and he liked to
work from home. (dial-in lines) He also liked to run the HD with the
upper part of the external enclosure removed so that he could show off to
customers and clients just how advanced their operation was. (ignoring
our warnings that this would allow the unit to attract dust and dirt more
rapidly)

Well... One Monday morning I get to the shop and we have a number of
messages on the answering machine (in increasing levels of agitation). He
starts off by explaining that Friday evening he started getting frequent
'sector' errors reported from the system. Over the course of the day
Saturday the errors increased and the system response degraded. Sunday
morning the system would not answer a call at all. Sunday evening he got
a call from the Alarm Monitoring company that something had tripped the
office alarms. When he went in to check the building, he noted that there
"appeared to be a problem with the hard drive" and wanted us out there
first thing to make sure he did not lose any data.

So... a couple of us went out expecting to have to clean out the wheel
assembly (yet again) and perhaps correct a couple of glitched sectors...
WRONG!

When we entered the computer room, it was quite obvious that there was a
bit more than a "problem with the hard drive"!

The room looked like someone had stood in the center with an M-16, and
used it to try to cut the room in half. Clear around the room at
about table top level were pieces of plastic and metal stuck into the wall
boards. The plexiglas 'bubble' from the HDA was gone (obviously
shattered) and the platters had large chunks missing from them. No need
to even look for the head/arm assemblies.

After an extended discussion with the customer, of which most of the time
was spent explaining that we would NOT be able to recover any data from
the drive, we set about collecting the wreckage and installing a new
drive and software.

Once back at the shop, a call to NorthStar brought a visit a few days
later from one of their technical support staff as well as an engineer
from the manufacturer of the HDA (Micropolis if I recall correctly).

The "official" explaination went something like this:

Due to the design of the (rather basic) tachometer circuit in this unit, a
missing sector pulse was intrepreted by the tach as a loss of spindle
speed. (start-up mode mentality, if you are starting the drive and don't
see a pulse, speed up (or start-up) the motor until the required pulse
rate is achieved) This was the cause of the "surging" sound noted in
previous service bulletins.

In "theory" (now apparently proven) if the sector/tach wheel became
sufficiently dirty the tachometer circuit could attempt to keep increasing
spindle speed up to such a point where a failure of the unit might be
induced either by overload failure of the spindle motor or by excess
vibration caused by excess rotational speed.

Apparently, no one ever considered a 'fail-safe' for the tachometer
circuit...

While they never did detail just exactly what failed first, whatever it
was apparently caused a head crash severe enough to fracture one or more
of the platters, and from that point it was all downhill...

In article , Jules Richardson
writes

While they never did detail just exactly what failed first, whatever it
was apparently caused a head crash severe enough to fracture one or more
of the platters, and from that point it was all downhill...

Nice story.

The platters probably just shattered when the drive reached critical
rotational speed. Think of CDs shattering in high-speed drives, not
uncommon.

--
(\__/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")