HP ProtectTools: File Sanitizer: Crapware? False Sense of Security ?

Hi,

I just got my EliteBook 8560P and playing around with it before delving deep and making registry changes.

There's loads of security features that come with the 8560P both in hardware and software - which seem very "high quality for corporate needs" or at least cool for just a regular user. This include the finger print access, facial recognition, pre-boot pw etc

The software side comes with many different suites too - haven't tested them all out and some are for the corporation environment with central administration of security etc- however what I did try out was, well lets say surprising at best and damn crap on a good day.

HP provides something called File Sanitizer:

So I though I'll give this a try since it'd be nice to delete your files securely; I simply browsed to the file and hot Shred Now.

Guess what? It simply throws it in the Windows Recycle Bin ! And guess what? you can simply recover it using the Recylce Bin "restore file" function.

WOW ! A bummer! Thanks HP.

So is this only my machine, or have others experienced the same?

Are all of the HP security hardware and software suites this crap? It's better to stick to crappy Windows security such as Shift+Delete..at least that doesn't leave it in the RB.

Any thoughts? Experience? Explanation would be appreciated.


I wasn't sure where to put this thread up so Admin you are more than welcome to move it where necessary.

Thanks

 

yeah, you have to change the default setting. Default is "simple delete" or something like that. You have to switch it to "High Security" (or something like that, I have no English system).

So, not really HPs fault but maybe it is better if default is high...

 

Actually, I've been using this on the multiple Probooks I've had since 2009-2010 and this option is actually sweet if you use the FILE SANITIZER that's located in the BIOS. IDK about the one that you can download, I was just looking at that to see if I could download something like that for my DV9308NR I just refurbed and seen that program your talking about. The one in the BIOS I use because I repair a lot of laptops / desktops / PS3's / XBOX 360 because I use my optical drive in an external caddy and have a 2nd HDD bay that slides in and out of where my optical drive used to be. Very handy and when you want to put a fresh install of OS on a HDD I just slide the HDD from the computer into my HDD caddy and boot to BIOS. Then select the file sanitizer and run it. Sometimes it takes a while but it runs 1's and 0's over the entire hard drive erasing every single sector including fragmented ones and sometimes even corrupted ones! I've done this on probably around 150 hard drives and only probably 10 times it didn't reformat the entire HDD to factory. From what I've read when you receive a new HDD it is filled with the same 1's and 0's or "empty". So using the file sanitizer that's in the BIOS has taken many HDD's out of super slow laptops, reformatted them to factory (can take 3 - 5 hours so this is something you want to set up to run before you go to sleep) but it is so worth it the next day having basically a new hard drive. Then after I install Windows I defrag over and over 4 to 5 times until it's as good as it can get sometimes 0 fragments. I keep doing this after installing every program or bit of software / drivers onto a laptop. When using defraggler after the first original defrag this only takes a few extra minutes and I usually end up with 25GB of software installed onto a laptop with almost no fragmented files. When using a 7200rpm HDD this can turn a laptop that was running Vista then transferred into a Win 7 Pro upgrade with the almost no fragments process and a ram upgrade seem like a brand new laptop. Many people are just as happy paying me $120 (including ram, usually a 2GB to 4GB upgrade) to do this to there Vista laptops instead of dropping $600 on a new laptop.