Time for an upgrade? Scrub your old data!

Question

How do i scrub the old data from my hard drive before i get rid of it?

Answer

This question was answered on August 23, 2007. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

“It’s time to upgrade my workstations, but I’m concerned about the information that's on the ones I’m getting rid of. How do I get all that data off the hard drive for good?”

Replacing workstations in a business is a common cycle every 3 to 4 years, but many businesses don't take into consideration what might be stored on the local hard drives of their employee's computers. Despite best efforts to store all critical information on servers, users tend not to pay attention when they save files to the Desktop or their local My Documents folders. Many horror stories about sensitive data that ended up in the hands of a buyer of a used computer have been reported over the years, so we want to remind everyone about this issue and provide these tools:

Erasure - a Free download that allows you to eliminate data on a file-by-file basis

Darik's Boot and Nuke - a Free download that will completely "nuke" the data on the entire hard drive

If you are not comfortable with either of these processes, simply remove the hard drive before selling or disposing of old systems or check with your local Data Doctors location for other options including service companies that specialize in military grade data destruction.

Author

Posted by George of Data Doctors on August 23, 2007