Best way to "Make Safe" old computer

DaveH

DaveH

Joined
Dec 2, 1999
Messages
12,249
I have two computers I would like to make safe before before passing them one to someone else.

One boots, has windows 98, ten years old. Is it worth even
doing anything with or should I just smash the HD and recyle?

The other is a Dell pentium 3 I think around 300 mhz processor. It does not boot after service pack install goobered. I did buy a linux disk to install, but I need a linux for dopes that need a simple install.
 
Remove the hard drive, open it up, physically destroy the media inside. The rest of the computer can go on for recycling.
 
Hi DaveH-

What do you mean "make safe" for others? Do you wish for the computer to remain functional for the recipient?

~ Blue Jays ~
 
as Mr. Gollnick has advised.. however there are other way's, though not as safe. you can get a program that rewrites your harddrive with 1's and 0's, however to be reasonably "safe" you would need that done about 3 times. not really worth the bother, but if you wan't i'll find the program.
 
Gollnick said:
Remove the hard drive, open it up, physically destroy the media inside. The rest of the computer can go on for recycling.
Click to expand...
That is the only sure thing, but probably overkill for most.
 
Hi All-

Most normal people really are not that "interesting" that criminals would try to cobble together their smashed and melted hard drive recovered from the garbage can. It's not likely that the cloak n' dagger types would be posting this question on the Internet anyway. ;)
  • Save important information to thumb-drive for transfer
  • Ensure the transfer is successful
  • Reformat original hard drive
  • Remove from original machine
  • Smash to smithereens with sledgehammer
  • Flambe with brandy and serve over a side of rice if paranoid
  • Take rest of machine to recycling center
Enjoy your new machine!

~ Blue Jays ~
 
Thanks you're right if new machines are just a few hundred nowadays it probably doesn't make sense to mess with.
 
It is possible, though time consuming, to make a computer "safe" to give to someone else. The process starts as soon as you have backed up any saved files you want to save. Then you can use a program to securely delete all files from the target HD, well not Windows, but anything that it will allow you to. Then format the HD, and use a program to write random '0' and '1' to the HD, repeat that a few times. It is then safe and ready to be given away to anyone who you would like to. At least I would feel that is as safe as needed unless you were holding some sort of really secure documents.

Of course the safest thing to do is to remove the HD, and physically destroy it. Then there is no possibility of data recovery at all. It all depends on who you are giving the computer to, and what it was used for really.

As a side note there are always people looking to get an old cheap PC. I know I am, computer science major, so I wouldn't mind having a second machine to just mess around with and use as a test bed. So if you do decide to get rid of them, and have nobody in mind to give them to shoot me an email.
 
Blue Jays said:
Hi All-

Most normal people really are not that "interesting" that criminals would try to cobble together their smashed and melted hard drive recovered from the garbage can. It's not likely that the cloak n' dagger types would be posting this question on the Internet anyway. ;)
  • Save important information to thumb-drive for transfer
  • Ensure the transfer is successful
  • Reformat original hard drive
  • Remove from original machine
  • Smash to smithereens with sledgehammer
  • Flambe with brandy and serve over a side of rice if paranoid
  • Take rest of machine to recycling center
Enjoy your new machine!

~ Blue Jays ~
Click to expand...

Or you could give it to that french guy who ate a bike and an entire cessna! (Cannot think of his name now.)
 
klattman said:
Or you could give it to that french guy who ate a bike and an entire cessna! (Cannot think of his name now.)
Click to expand...
I think his name was Dick Head.
 
If you have access to a powerful electro magnet, that will work too.

You can download PGP (an encryption program) that has a secure delete function (over writes the file(s) in question several times). I'd hook up the drive you want to secure to a new machine with PGP installed and direct it to erase the whole damn thing. That'll probably take a while thought.

Or do as others have suggested: take it to the shooting range (after running over it a few times) and blast it to h3ll. Run over the pieces, soak it in old motor oil and bury it.

That oughta do it.
 
It is not necessary to use shotguns, electromagnets, brandy, or anything exotic. Once you take the screws out of the hard-drive's outer shell, you'll find that the media itself is thin, flexible piece of brown/black plastic that can be cut to shreads with a knife in seconds. Once you cut it into a few pieces, it would take the NSA to put humpty back together again... and we're going to assume that the value of your information doesn't rise to that level.
 
Unless you work for No Such Agency and you're giving it to someone who might let it fall into the hands of a Foreign Power, destroying a perfectly good hard drive is a ridiculous excess of paranoia. Just fdisk it and give it away. Think of the poor people who would be overjoyed to have that old hard drive....

Yes, it would be possible for a Foreign Power to recover information from a hard drive even after you've formated it with fdisk, but it's not the kind of thing that the people you give the computer are likely to be able to figure out even if they wanted to, and if you thought they were that untrustworthy you wouldn't be giving them anything, would you?
 
Blue Jays said:
  • Save important information to thumb-drive for transfer
  • Ensure the transfer is successful
  • Reformat original hard drive
  • Remove from original machine
  • Smash to smithereens with sledgehammer
  • Flambe with brandy and serve over a side of rice if paranoid
  • Take rest of machine to recycling center
~ Blue Jays ~
Click to expand...

LOL now that is funny! Mmmmm,...rice.... :D :D
 
Cougar Allen said:
Unless you work for No Such Agency and you're giving it to someone who might let it fall into the hands of a Foreign Power, destroying a perfectly good hard drive is a ridiculous excess of paranoia. Just fdisk it and give it away. Think of the poor people who would be overjoyed to have that old hard drive....
Click to expand...
No no no no no no, if you take it apart you get one or two of these great, really strong magnets. Excellent for clamping things to your fridge, like notes, car doors and so on.
 
Hard drives these days are dirt cheap. Frys is currently offering a 160GByte Seagate 7200 RPM, etc., not a bad drive at all and huge, for $49 after rebate.

Don't want to deal with a rebate? Fine. Maxtor 40GBytes 5400RPM for $59.

$50 is very little to pay to protect your personal information.

So, before donating your used computer, remove tired, old, slow, small hard drive that's probably on its last leg anyway, and stuff in a $50 hard drive that's huge and brand new. You don't have to format it or even hook it up. Just screw it in. The people at the charity you donate it to will figure it all out and install an appropriate, 100%-up-to-date secure and stable operating system and application software. The ultimate receipient of your computer will thank you for the extra space and reliability and you'll sleep sounder. Plus, you'll have two great magnets to play with.
 
Gollnick said:
It is not necessary to use shotguns, electromagnets, brandy, or anything exotic. Once you take the screws out of the hard-drive's outer shell, you'll find that the media itself is thin, flexible piece of brown/black plastic that can be cut to shreads with a knife in seconds. Once you cut it into a few pieces, it would take the NSA to put humpty back together again... and we're going to assume that the value of your information doesn't rise to that level.
Click to expand...

err, i belive this would be correct for a floppy disk however a hard drive contains several "platters" which aren't thin or flexible at all. perhaps i misunderstood you.

also, retrieving data from a hard drive after "fdisk" does not require a foreign power, it's quite easy. even assembling a busted hard drive can be done for a few thousand dollars by some companies in this data recovery field. anyway, i think i'm going to take apart a hard drive for the hell of it now ;)
 
Yeah, sorry Gollnick you are off base a bit here. The actual media inside a HD is about an 1/16" metallic plate. Think of basically a CD made out of some sort of metal and you get the idea, no knife will cut it easily.
 
PGP a few times over, then go in through dos and kill it file by file down to sector 0...

norton commander is the easiest way to do the file deletion, just make sure your mouse is one of the last things to go.
 
I may be remembering wrong. It's been a long time since I actually tore one apart myself. If it's a rigid disk, all the better. Just shatter it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top