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Tom's Hardware > Forum > Storage > Hard Drives > [Solved] Handling used HDD

[Solved] Handling used HDD

Forum Storage : Hard Drives [Solved] Handling used HDD

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jrodfry   01-27-2012 at 06:44:25 PM

I will be handling used HDDs in the near future, and I need to remove all the personal information that will be on them. I'm trying to figure out if I can remove the files but keep the OS and not put any clients personal information at risk. What would you suggest?

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ram1009   01-27-2012 at 07:06:41 PM

A waste of time IMHO. An OS will adapt itself to the environment in which it is installed. Trying to move an OS from one environment to another is far more difficult than installing a new OS especially since you want to delete the rest of the partition. Keep in mind that HDDs have a finite life expectancy. Personally, I don't trust them beyond 3 years.

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jrodfry   02-06-2012 at 08:29:13 PM

I meant to say that I will be keeping the hard drives within their original computer/laptop, and just deleting personal information.
Thanks for the help

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Linkdead14   02-08-2012 at 01:24:14 AM
Best answer

jrodfry wrote :

I meant to say that I will be keeping the hard drives within their original computer/laptop, and just deleting personal information.
Thanks for the help



It depends on how thorough you want to be in removing personal information. If the removal needs to be 100% certain then the only method I see is completely reformatting with a program such as Derik's Boot and Nuke and reinstalling the OS.

To my knowledge there is no program that would execute the type of erase your looking for. There's a program called eraser that permanently deletes files that could otherwise be recovered; but the program is only as good as the human behind it. Because we're all fallible I wouldn't recommend using it; undoubtedly some data would be left behind.

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Mousemonkey   02-08-2012 at 08:29:08 PM

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey

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