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Q: have you ever sold a computer in China
how to, get rid of any personal stuff before handing it over? passwords have to go from each browser? documents all deleted .....what else? ... is this gonna take hours and hours? or is there a simple way without deleting programs. ... sorry, I'm old.
9 years 48 weeks ago in Web & Technology - China
You can wipe your hard disk and reinstall the OS. This will clear all data. Make sure you do it at least twice. Some software out there can do deep searches into your hard drive and retrieve information. When I sold my old notebook I wiped it 3 times and reinstalled my OS each time. Sometimes, ghosts programs remain on the hard drive and these can be used to retrieve your old data.
DrMonkey:
Depending on which software you are using to wipe your hard-disk, you can ask to erase data (writing '0' in the hard-disk, in sectors that used to host files, instead of just forgetting which sector is associated to which file). Wipping 2, 3 or 4 times might not do that, however, it will just randomly overwrite a few sectors hosting data from previous usages. Completely random, therefore not reliable ;)
Sinobear:
Use Derrick's Boot and Nuke (it's free).
It takes a loooong time (I let it go overnight when I have to use it). It will restore your HD to its native virgin state.
Consider taking help from a non-Chinese friend if you have it available.
Even after deleting your data it can be recovered somehow. But it becomes hard to do it if you replace it with another data. So my suggestion although a terrible one...use a software for testing hard disk storage. its process is simple. It will completely fill your hard drive with data to see how much storage it has. It is used to test storage devices and check if they are genuine or fake. But this will help you as it will replace the deleted personal data..
Chinese are not so smart as to dig 2-3 layers under the hard drive and successfully recover data
To be totally safe, buy a cheap HDD, and smash yours to pieces, usually that is what some security services recommend. Some HDD can be purchased for very little money. It's the root I have taken, although to be honest I have never sold a computer in China. But in eastern Europe they can find anything on a formatted disc if it's there and they want it badly enough.
