Say i reformated my Hdrive and installed a fresh copy of windows xp home on it after already having reformatting it several times in the past with having all sorts of confidential and nonconfidential info on it. My question is, if i were to sell the desktop with a re formated hdrive will someone be able to dig up information that was previously on the hdrive before the reformat? i dont want to sell my computer to a computer genie and have him/her find out what i had on my comp which involved a lot of personal and confidential and financial information. So, is this possible?
I had the same exact situation with me a few years back. Had Clients Brokerage info and such on my PC. Thier is a program you can get that will keep re-writing jibberish over and over on the drive while reformating it as well. Wish i still had the program so i can tell you the name. try google though.
But I learned a lesson from that. I keep stuff seperated now between 2 drives , one internal the other external. So I'lll never have to worry about that again.
Say i reformated my Hdrive and installed a fresh copy of windows xp home on it after already having reformatting it several times in the past with having all sorts of confidential and nonconfidential info on it. My question is, if i were to sell the desktop with a re formated hdrive will someone be able to dig up information that was previously on the hdrive before the reformat? i dont want to sell my computer to a computer genie and have him/her find out what i had on my comp which involved a lot of personal and confidential and financial information. So, is this possible?Montaya
Yes, it is possible, because when you format the data on the disk actually isn't deleted, it is just "put away" by the file system. You need a program such as dd that can fill the disk with random bytes.
If you want to be on the safe side, perform the random byte fill about 5-6 times on the disk.
how to protect your data: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3666313997358427084&q=hard+drive+torch&total=17&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=3
hmm. i think i will just buy a new hdrive and keep this one =/. sounds too risky.Montaya
No risk involved at all (it just takes a while) as long as you don't have anything on the disk that you want to keep. Backup first and you're safe. Do a random byte fill on the hd six times and your sensitive information - and everything else - is gone.
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