Over this past weekend our daughter picked up a used computer system at a garage sale for the grandson. This morning she brought the system to me to clean it up and to add some programs to it. The system was a good buy for $25 in that it has XP on it, 512 RAM, and a P4 processor and should be more than able to run the kid’s games he has. But that is not the real story. The real story is that whoever owned this before left all of their data intact on the system. Heck, they even left personal information that I could actually use to steal their identity and Quicken data with their banking information. UNBELIEVABLE!

Which does make one wonder how many other folks out there in computerland are doing the same thing? I am sure that most of you here who read my ramblings are a smarter breed of computer savvy user, so this is mainly directed to those who may be unfamiliar on how to clean a hard disk and keep their personal information private. If you are unsure how to properly clean a drive I would highly recommend contacting a professional or family member who has the expertise to complete this task for you.

If you are not planning on selling the system or donating it, then do the screwdriver test. Take a hammer and place a screwdriver over the disk and give it a few whacks. Though it is still possible to get some data off the plates, for the most part your data will likely be safe from most common users. But if you do plan on selling the machine or giving it away to charity, clean off the hard disk using one of the many fine programs available for free.

One such program is Kill Disk available here.

Another is Secure Erase from here.

Many other freebies can be found here as well.

Be safe. Comments welcome.

Tags: hard disk, clean, personal, information, computer