Clearing personal data from old computer

CuppaCocoa

I've just bought a new desktop and am giving the old one to a friend's 13 year old. I didn't want to wipe the hard drive so I've removed the programmes she won't need, removed my account from Outlook Express and removed my bookmarks from I.E. and Firefox. I've run anti-spyware/virus and cleared my cookies. How can I be sure there's no personal data lying around? Some of the sites I visited were not exactly suitable for a 13 year old!

Anti

To be safe i'd Fdisk it and reinstall windows.

admiralofthefleet

or even try dban and wipe the disk

CuppaCocoa

Hmmm, problem is it's 7 years old and I don't have the original cds that came with it so if I wipe it I won't be able to re-install anything! Plus I can't load my new discs onto it as there's not enough memory for Vista. Is there not an easier solution?

Sherifu

lilybarlean wrote: »

I've just bought a new desktop and am giving the old one to a friend's 13 year old. I didn't want to wipe the hard drive so I've removed the programmes she won't need, removed my account from Outlook Express and removed my bookmarks from I.E. and Firefox. I've run anti-spyware/virus and cleared my cookies. How can I be sure there's no personal data lying around? Some of the sites I visited were not exactly suitable for a 13 year old!

CCleaner or else wipe and reinstall

CuppaCocoa

Thanks. I'll use CCleaner!

Capt'n Midnight

when you think you have it clean
if it's a windows 95 /98 /me system have a look for *.pwd files
run regedit and search for your name

delete the temp and temporary internet folders
delete all ~*.* and *'~* files
delete all *.bak files microsoft take a bow here for producing many many different file names - .xlk etc.
it's tedious as there are so many

windows and other programs are very untidy. the windows registry contains a lot stuff even after a good reg clean. Older versions of either Arcserve/BackupExec left the password of the service account in a text file , was shocked to hear that, was even more shocked to find that file on one of the servers :eek:
point being you never know.

The very minimum would be to use a program like eraser or sdelete to wipe the free space to stop photorec pulling stuff back - as it's name suggests it's very good at recovering pictures

There is no easy solution, unless you have encrypted folders you can safely assume that anyone with physical access to the machine can find stuff on it.

A reinstall would probably take less time than a good search and destroy. - if 95/98/me have a look for a folder called \windows\options\cabs - this will contain most of the reinstall files AND hopefully the hardware drivers, you would also need floppy disk 1 to get setup.exe

if it was nt4/windows 2000 then there may be an i386 folder to reinstall from
.

7 years old ??
You could try ubuntu on it if they have wired broadband, so no modem or wireless to mess around with. You can test with a ubuntu boot cd too. If painfully slow try puppylinux. Both will give you browsing and basic office applications

L31mr0d

without wiping the disk and reinstalling the OS you'll never be sure all the information is gone.

Think what would be worse, paying for a cheap copy of windows XP (or a free version of Linux) and installing it or receiving that call from your friend about something their 13 y/o child found on your PC. Your choice tbh.

Capt'n Midnight

L31mr0d wrote:

Think what would be worse, paying for a cheap copy of windows XP

wow !
I'd love to know where you can get a non-OEM copy of XP that's costs less than a 7 year old desktop

dban FTW

There is another option ...
remove the firewall / antivirus / anti-malware apps and leave it on the internet all weekend.
By Monday there will be smut and personal information all over it, but at least it won't be yours

CuppaCocoa

Oops, too late, it's gone! Hopefully whoever sets it up for her won't go looking for my information. There was no porn on it, just a few adult shops I visited and set as bookmarks (which I deleted!)

Fingers crossed!