Question about scrubbing an old PC?

J

Jamin43

banned
If you got a donated old PC - or wanted to sell an old PC - What are teh areas where old files / personal information might reside - that could / should be cleared?

1) HDD - I found an application called Drivescrubber that can be used to wipe a Hard drive clear of old deleted files.

2) RAM - Does physical RAM hold old files that I can clear -
* is there a way to clear RAM through something I personally do?
* An application - or otherwise - does CCleaner do this ?
* or is there something else I should be aware of

3) CPU cache - is there a way to clear cache of a CPU?

4) Web Browser cache - I'm not sure where this is stored on a PC? But how do I clear that?

Anything else I'm missing on a PC that can be cleared? Those are the only 3 I could think of.

Thanks
 
1) Reformat

2) No physical data actually is ever stored in RAM, it is used to... stimulate processes so to speak. For instance, If you open up Microsoft Word, you use RAM. After you close it, it is cleared from the RAM.

3) This has nothing to do with Data storage. The size of the CPU cache determines the speed that the CPU can access info, not store it.

4) This is deleted during the reformatting of your drive.
 
Last edited:
You guys aren't going to advise that he use Darik's Boot and Nuke to completely wipe out the hard drive? I would run the Boot and Nuke program. It completely wipes a hard drive making data nearly impossible to recover.

You can download Darik's Boot and Nuke here:
http://www.dban.org/download
 
2048Megabytes said:
You guys aren't going to advise that he use Darik's Boot and Nuke to completely wipe out the hard drive? I would run the Boot and Nuke program. It completely wipes a hard drive making data nearly impossible to recover.

You can download Darik's Boot and Nuke here:
http://www.dban.org/download
Click to expand...

A reformat makes data pretty much irrecoverable to a normal person, but yes, something like that would prevent any chance of recovering data. I was trying to think of a free utility that did that, but couldnt think of any so that is why i suggested just a reformat. That looks to be a nifty utility though, bookmark'd it.
 
Darik's Boot and Nuke is a great program. It completely overwrites a hard drive and also has the option to do random patterns and passes in writing on the hard drive making the data impossible to recover. I am of the opinion that once a hard drive has been overwritten it isn't possible presently to recover the data.
 
It depends on what erase method you use with Darik's Boot and Nuke. From what I remember you can erase with one pass, three passes, seven or thirty. I would feel comfortable that my data is erased using three passes.
 
2048Megabytes said:
It depends on what erase method you use with Darik's Boot and Nuke. From what I remember you can erase with one pass, three passes, seven or thirty. I would feel comfortable that my data is erased using three passes.
Click to expand...

I would assume its more like 35 passes for the last option, which would be the guttmann technique.
 
correct me please if incorrect. 7 passes is considered sanitized by DOD standard? beyond this costs ludicrous amounts of money per KB to recover...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top