Tech Removing Personal Data From Old Laptaps

[Baileylouise]

Hi, my laptop recently broke down and I am in the process of purchasing a new one. My question is what is the best way of wiping my personal data from the old laptop and also transferring folders/files onto the new laptop ?

 

[ScottyGal]

You could use an external hard drive to move files and folders, or (depending on how many you have), store them online opposed to locally on your PC using something like SkyDrive (you get this with Hotmail/Live email accounts), Dropbox etc.

In terms of removing the data - simply 'deleting' something does not make it completely unretrievable.. If you have anything of a particularly senstivie or personal nature, I would ask someone that you know who is tech-savy to format the hard drive for you. If this is not an option and you are not going to be selling or giving the computer to anyone, you can actually just destory the hard drive - you can smash it to 1000 smithereens or pay a data disposal/tech company to destroy it for you.

 

[*schmoo*]

I read that you have to get software to wipe a hard drive (e.g., DBAN). But most sure-fire way of doing it is physically destroying it.

 

[ap.]

I don't know about PCs but on Macs you can use Disk Utility to erase and overwrite (I do a DoD standard of 7x overwrite even of the free space) your disk. Then you'll need to re-install a system.

Before you do all this, make sure you've logged off all services, gotten rid of all partitions, removed all installed passwords, etc...

I read that you have to get software to wipe a hard drive (e.g., DBAN). But most sure-fire way of doing it is physically destroying it.

I recommend still erasing before destroying the hard disk/flash storage.

However, I donate my computers to schools or charity as they're all still usable when I replace them, so I don't want to destroy them.