20Jan DBAN – selling your computer or HDD. Read this
So I sell a fair share of my old computers and I have computers from two of my jobs that I regularly turn in for upgrades. When I do this I like to make sure my data is no longer on the machine.
It isn’t that I am doing anything wrong, it is just that I do not need the next guy who gets my machine to look up my photos or something like that. I might have some unencrypted files that I do not want them to access. You know stuff like that.
So what do I do before I sell a laptop or otherwise release a HDD into the wild?
I use DBAN. I simply install it to a bootable USB (or DVD) and let it run. I choose all the defaults and just let it go. The last drive I ran it on it took 36 hours to run. I feel reasonable secure that my data is no longer on the drive and it is left in a state that I can either install the OS or place the restore disks from the manufacturer in the machine and let it go.
Seriously a good option. I remember Shawn asking me a few years ago if I did this and I kinda laughed it off. I took him very serious after some reports of data on HDDs coming off of Ebay etc.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1178239/Computer-hard-drive-sold-eBay-details-secret-U-S-missile-defence-system.html
http://blog.alertsec.com/2009/09/ebay-allowing-unencrypted-drives-to-live-on/
Anyway. Not my data.