So I have an IBM laptop that is provided by my work. I will be leaving soon and want to make sure all of “My Documents” are deleted (for good). What is the best way of doing this? Sure I can delete them, but they could be recovered, right? What deletes them for good?

Thanks…

 

If you're that concerned, buy a new hard drive and swap it out.

 

Sledgehammer is my favorite solution. Or, if you don't want to pay for the laptop, a big honkin' magnet and then just say "wow, good thing I had to turn it in, it stopped booting up today!!"

 

Google Free disk wipe programs...

Here is one but I haven't tried it.

http://www.download3000.com/download_11734.html

 

If it were my computer, it'd have a tragic ending with a 12 gauge rifled slug.

Format the whole damn thing and let them worry about it.

 

save what you want, then go to start> run,
Then type "cmd", when the command prompt comes up, type "format C:"

shut off and turn it in.

BTW it can still be recovered until all the data is written over if it "All" ever is........

 

That don't fly... any slack-jawed yokel can retreive the data. Plus, that won't even format the drive propertly since your trying to format the drive that you booted from... jeez..

 

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys...k/SDelete.mspx

 

I sure hope that nobody is dumb enough to back up their personal data ON the internet on those ISP supported sites that are supposedly for that purpose...

To make absolutely sure the data is totally destroyed and your old HD is "safe", I suggest you format it, demagnetize it, pull it out out of the PC, then go out and lay it in the driveway, and drive over it with your trusty F-150 a few times. After that it should pretty muc be safe from getting recovered when you don't want it to.

Also, don't forget that Google saves EVERY search term that you have ever used ~ EVER!

I use an external usb drive for ALL of my personal stuff, photos, WP, financial, whatever, and just KEEP the data there like another drive, so I can carry it with me and access it with any pc anywhere. That way when I swap pc's I have the info with ME, and the only danger is mostly only in the buffer space and trash bin of my or whatever PC I would use. I also have a laptop, so I usually use my own PC anyway when I am away from my desktop PC.

I have a second usb drive that I use to store old backup copies for the safety of having a backup copy of what is on the first drive. If I lose my pc or if it were to get stolen, there is nothing on it that could come back and "git" me, and there is nothing to lose when the HD gets fried. NOT if, but WHEN. It is ONLY a matter of time before yours fails too...

The only thing other than games and stuff on my "C" drive is the OS, with a backup copy on the "D" drive.

 

Dangit I got to agree again...

Formating from the OS, heck even from a boot disk would take only minutes to rebuild the drive and a little longer if you forced a full format.

 

So for some reason my fan quite working last night... but it sounded like the hard drive.

Talked with the IT guy and a new fan & new hard drive will be here Monday.

Thanks for the help guys.

 

Somebody was storing naughty pictures on their computer!

Duke

 

LMFAO ! ! !

 

You could also go to the manufacturer site and get a copy of their diagnostic tools. Most of them give you the option to write zeros to the entire drive. The average person is not going to go to all the trouble to try and recover the data anyway. They'll just rebuild and move on.


Then use a big magnet, shotgun slug, truck tire, etc.....

 

get a windows 98 bootdisk go in to fdisk it will say do you want support for large drives select yes. delete the partition create a partition (it will fat32 you had ntfs) reboot. with win 98 bootdisk type format c: when it is done put win xp disk in cd drive reboot. reinstall win xp do not format when you install xp do it on fat32 most people could not get and data off of it now