Reformatted...will the new owner be able to get any of my data?

I just reinstalled windows on a computer that I'm selling tomorrow and I don't want them to be able to pull any of my data off this computer. I'm certainly no expert on what is left behind so I hope somebody can help me out.


It's a dell E1505 and I wiped the C drive, left the diagnostics alone and also left partition 3(5 GB-I think it's media direct but it may be the restore?). Can I leave it as is or do I need to delete it? I have never deleted this partition and I would rather not have anything go wrong tonight before it ships.

 

Well, supposedly the cia reformats hdd's like 7 times before being re-used, so one time on your pc should be fine. I wouldn't worry too much about it, but if you used vista's format (which is just a quick format), might not hurt to do a second time.

 

Yes the new owner will be able to rebuild most of your data. All you did was erase the directory (table of contents) the only data erased was what was written over. The only sure fire way to protect your data is with a hammer. If that seems to extreme there is software that can write over all unused space multiple times.

 

No No No - reformat cant do. Your data is still in. Reformating is like it only deletes the information regarding the files' location not the data on the disk itself.

Try this http://dban.sourceforge.net/ or

this http://www.disk-wiper.net/

Edit: Or U can dump some junk data till HDD full and then delete it. The New owner can only recover your junk files.

 

Wow this is a little scary now


I'm mostly worried about files that I may have put credit card or bank information in previously. I used XP's NTFS FWIW.

 

Secure Erase is probably better than using a hammer. LOL

DBan is what I've used in the past, but after reading about this program, should I need to erase an hdd in the future, Secure Erase is what I'll use.

 

Nothing is better than the hammer, and nothing more fun. But yea what you said should work fine and computers w/HDD's work better than ones without. And rob I posted a picture of you riding your bike in OT mem pics.

 

you just keep forgeting one thing... even hammering the thing down won't destroy everything, i mean every piece of info... you'd know that if you were from poland after all there are tools and experts who can get to the data even after some direct approach to "reformating" needless to say, you'd need to smash the thing to tiny pieces... and yeah, it's quite a lot of fun especially once you recall the peugeot 206 advert with "body-kit working"

 

Thanks for the help guys...this is turning into a nightmare. I'm exhausted and there is no way I can ship this now. Exactly how skilled does someone have to be to recover these files? I mean...are we talking expert or anybody who can read?


I'm still reading up on these programs..

 

Download Sdelete.
Extract to a directory in your path (e.g. the Windows directory).
Open a command prompt (Start, Run, cmd.exe)
Run "sdelete -z c:" (without the quotes)
Wait until it's done.

 

If you can install Windows you can recover the files. It is not a high skill operation. You get a readily available application that reads every bit and reconstructs the files. No computer whiz needed. I would not send out with out doing something. If you take the software approach and wipe as said above about 7 times I believe that is called DOD standard. Do that or more.

 

That won't hurt obviously, but it's probably unnecessary. Overwrite once and you're well into "disassemble in cleanroom, try to reconstruct something with 'special' (i.e. only available to intelligence services, if it even exists) hardware" territory.

 

most of the mentionend applications do overwrite every bit 3 times. that is in 99 % ok. you don´t need to go all the way up to overwriting every bit 7 times. thats quite a waste of time.

but of course if you just delete(and rebuild) the partitiontable it won´t be enough if you have sensitive data on your hdd.
if you wanna see whats still left after just re-formating a drive you should give it a shot and try ontrack easy recovery. this little prog will restore most of your data without mayor damage. one little downside is that filenames are changed, since these were stored in the partitiontable. but i can guarantee you that you will be scared after seeing how many files can be restored after just a drive format.

 

So I've been reading articles all night and most agree that data written over 3X is unlikely to be recoverable, and only the bigshots with the very expensive equipment and software have a chance at it.

Good read here, a little dated but still good: http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/advice/20030711a1.asp

I'm going to give one of these programs a shot tomorrow and see if they can retrieve anything. Just got done with my 2nd wipe...I'm so done for tonight:SLEEP:

 

BTW, I think I'll just be taking the drives out in the future when I get rid computers. I just don't have the time to do it now.

 

Do a complete format when re-installing the system. Might take a little more time but it's peace of mind. I don't believe regular people go out and maliciously look for info on used hard drive.

 

Go to your hard drives manufacter site and there should be a diagnostic program that will have a "Write Zero's" option/tool. This will definately wipe the disk clean like a babys bum. 0 recoverable data and 0 traces

 

If someone wants to reconstruct your data, such as the feds or corporate company, they can do it. It requires alot of time and money, but if you are doing something illegal, they are willing to get proofs. I second the Hammer, it is the best way to make sure your data is completely gone.

Since OP is just selling to another owner, a secure wipe should be fine though.

 

when i was reformatting my pc which has 3 hd's in it. i accidentally selected the wrong one and erased 60 gigs of data. i used restorer 2000 and got it all back. so its not to hard if they really want to do it. basically the process was installing the program and running it.

 

Like Powerpack mentioned, formatting is just erasing of table of content or schoko's word, rebuild of partition table. The actual data is still on the harddrive, it is just now 'marked' as free space so windows can write to it when requested. A secure write is different, it overwrite the entire harddrive with 1s and 0s, and you can do it multiple times to reduce the chance of data trails; therefore, it require more work on it than just an average commercial programs that specialize in "undeleting files".

 

Or if you really want security, just replace the HD and keep the original for an external drive.

 

I was just thinking about that idea, as I may want to sell my old laptop in my sig for a couple hundred, still runs great and can keep up doing regular stuff.

I should look at it in this fashion:

Selling your Laptop: $545 + 2Gb Ram Trade
Not Purchasing a new internal HDD for it: $0
Having all of your financial accounts drained and exported in less than 15 seconds: Priceless

 

I'm done

I took your advice Schoko and downloaded and ran easy recovery after my second reinstall. To my surprise, a TON of files were still intact Something like 49K+ and plenty of docs that I could just open up like nothing ever happened. Almost all the programs I ever downloaded were still showing up and many files were in perfect condition so clearly more work had to be done...Cue KILLDISK

I'm sure all the other programs suggested in this thread work fine but I ended up going with this one and it worked great as far as I can tell. I erased the entire drive and then repartitioned and reinstalled windows. I ran recovery again and 19000 files showed up(1.5GB) but they all seem to be system files with no personally identifiable data. The screenshots from paint and other pictures that showed up before killdisk are all gone too.


I would totally recommend killdisk if anyone is looking to get rid of their computer. It's crazy all the data that can be recovered even after several reformats. I now feel confident that someone will have a very hard time retrieving any data from this drive and I will be shipping it out tomorrow...glad it's over

 

You're better off going the full 9 when getting rid of a computer b/c you never know who's hands it might end up in. Identity theft is the last thing I need.

 

This is true now that people who might read this forum know which program can recover lost/deleted data!

 

Yeah b/c it would be pretty tough to google "data recovery" right?

 

I tried to recover data from my HD that is now an external drive and I couldn't recover anything. Could the NTFS format so thorough in deleting files? Any good free data recovery programs available? I tried Recuva but it couldn't find anything.

 

I think we have all been lax in the past about our hard drives- when we sold them, got rid of them, etc. Easy Recovery is just one of many data recovery programs available. With ER, I have been able to most easily recover text document such as word, excel, .txt files, etc-- the stuff some of us hide our credit card infor in.....

killdisk is nice and you can download the trial versions of similar programs from paragon and acronis and use them. As Powerpack mentioned, DoD 5220.22-M Standard is what many programs reference and it's best to run 7 cycles, but 3 is much better than nothing.

 

No, a complete reformat is not one tiny bit safer than a quick format. Not even 1 bit. If you don't believe people will do this sort of thing, why don't you send me your social security number, your mother's maiden name, your name and address. *Trust me*, I won't do anything with it.

As for the disk wiping thing, I have written a whole guide about this. Please see it in my sig (Cleaning Free Space)

 

relax. IMO if youre really concerned about this. simply use all 3 programs mentioned in the thread. once youre done just send it off.

If you really wanted to get the job done you should have used a degausser.

Secondly, with all this stress to the HDD, youd better hope it doesnt die on you

 

Seriously, talking about hammers and degaussers is of no help to the OP, and frankly no help to anyone else either. Realistically, you need to run a wipe program 1-3 times over a disk, that's it. You do not need any more than that.

And no, the CIA does not have a microscope or anything that can "undelete" stuff by peeling back older versions of magnetic somethingorother. You watch too much CSI.