Delete And Clean Old Computer Before Recycling.

Hello,

I have 2 desk top computers which I would like to recycle but need to remove everything first. I checked the tutorials/videos on the home page and didn't see anything there (although I may have missed it with the amount of great information listed). Can someone direct me to a site or post a list of what I should do to delete all content on the computer hard drives before I get rid of them? Thanks.

 

What do you mean by "all" content? Do you mean your personal data or everything, including Windows?

And check the recycling center you are going to. The Goodwill will wipe your data for you.

What I use if I want to totally and securely erase the entire drive is a docking station like this attached to my working computer. Then I just run CCleaner's Disk Wiper program on the entire drive. Any external drive enclosure or USB adapter will work. And one pass is plenty - unless you have Top Secret or very incriminating data on your drive, and then you should use a hard drive shredder.

 

Hi,

Thanks for your reply. Just any personal data, personal web content, etc. I would have no idea how to use a docking station, can I just install CC Cleaner on my computer and then run it? Sorry, I'm not very experienced. Thanks again

 

Docking stations are simple. That's what is so nice about them. You just plug in their power cord, plug their USB cable into an available USB port and that's it. Then you just slide your drive into the top and the computer then sees it as another drive on your computer.

Not sure what you mean by web content as that can mean stuff you have stored out on the web (as in cloud storage).

If you mean all your cookies and browsing history, CCleaner will do that but you can also do it from within your browser.

CCleaner can "wipe" totally erase secondary (not boot) drives with no problem. But none can totally erase the boot drive because the system is running from the boot drive. That's were removing that drive from that computer and inserting it into the docking station attached to another computer comes in.

If you uninstall all your downloaded and installed programs (except CCleaner), and then delete all your photos and Documents, you can then run CCleaner's Drive Wiper feature on all the free disk space only. This will ensure the next owner cannot undelete your personal documents but will still leave the operating system intact.

 

At first you said you wanted to clean everything, which is the best option when donating / recycling.
https://forums.tomshardware.com/faq/how-to-wipe-a-hard-drive-dban.2166893/

 

DBAN will work but it really is not a user friendly process. CCleaner's Drive Wiper is just as effective and much easier to use.

You can also just format the drive, then fill it up with new, non-personal files like tunes or videos. The idea for any "wipe" program is NOT to "erase" or "delete" any previously stored data. The idea is very simply just to "write" (save) something "over" the previously stored data. It can be a bunch of random 1s and 0s as most dedicated wipe programs do, or it can be 1s and 0s representing real, but safe files like Led Zeppelin tunes or YouTube videos.

Eraser – which uses DBAN technologies is popular too. So is KillDisk. I like CCleaner because so many users already have it.

One can also, from within Windows, encrypt the disk before discarding. From an elevated command prompt, enter cipher /w:c: to wipe free disk space (where c: is drive letter) (tip from Ed Bott).

Windows 10 now includes an excellent wipe feature for hard drives. For example, from an elevated command prompt (Run as administrator), simply enter: format d: /p:3 then press Enter. This will format drive D writing 0s in every sector 3 times. Change the drive letter as necessary and the number to the desired number of additional passes. Then the format command will go back and overwrite a bunch of random 1s and 0s into every sector for 3 additional passes. To wipe the boot drive, you will need to do this by booting from your Recovery disk through the Troubleshoot menu (see TechRebublic, How to perform a secure disk wipe with Windows 10’s Format command.

And for the record, 1 pass is plenty for 99.99% of the users out there. Unless you have Top Secret military information of the utmost national security levels on your drive, something China or Russia is willing to spend an excessive amount of time and money to retrieve, don't worry about wasting extra time with more than one pass. No bad guy is going to put that much time, money and effort on any discarded drive. And note even if you did have such sensitive information on the drive, a single pass will obliterate most, if not all of the data anyway. So even if they had the funding and requisite, highly sophisticated laboratory and data recovery equipment to perform such tasks, they would only be able to recover some of the data - just a few, tiny disjointed fragments out of 1000s that make up the entire file. It would be like having a tiny handful of disconnected puzzle pieces from a 1000 piece puzzle - and that's if they were lucky.

It is also important to note that wipe programs do NOT work effectively on SSDs due to the "wear leveling" feature used by SSDs. So SSDs must be "sanitized" instead, if you want to ensure no personal data is left behind. One way to erase (sanitize) SSDs is to use the manufacturer's utility. Visit the SSD maker's website for their tool.

 

Not that this is the point of this post, but DBAN (like most) wiping programs will not overwrite bad spots / sectors, so information could be retrieved from there.
So remove the hard drive(s) take a drill and go to town. Done.

 

That is going to totally unnecessary extremes for many many reasons. These include,

1. The typical hard disk cluster size is just 4 kilobytes. So it is unlikely it will contain a complete file of useful information.
2. If the cluster is bad, most likely the data within is corrupt, incomplete and useless to the bad guy.
3. If bad, no readily available data recovery program will be able to retrieve it.
4. To recover data from bad clusters takes very sophisticated (read: expensive) equipment and lots of time to recover, if recovery is even possible. This is exactly why data recovery services are so expensive and can cost $100s and even $1000 and offer no guarantees of success.
5. The typical used drive user is not likely going to even look for bad clusters.
6. Most bad guys are lazy opportunists. They go for the easy pickings. If the drive is bad, they will quickly move on.
7. If a bad guy is specifically targeting you and your old drive, you have bigger issues to deal with. ​

The exception of course is as I noted above - if you have extremely sensitive, incriminating information on the drive, or if you have Top Secret information that a hostile foreign government would like to get their hands on. But no bad guy is going to put that much time, money and effort on any discarded drive. It is just highly unlikely you are that important or any of your information that might be recoverable is that valuable.

I have destroyed drives by drilling holes in it. I typically drive 3 holes though the drive, about 1 inch from the center hub. But that was only when I worked for the government and it was the drive's controller board that was bad. But then we got one of those drive shredders.

 

Thank you both, I've manually deleted what I can and will run CCCleaner on the rest. What about defragmenting the hard drive - will that write over any leftovers?

 

No - not in the way you are thinking. Just run CCleaner's "Drive Wiper" tool selecting "Free Space Only". "Simple Overwrite (1 pass)" is more than sufficient for your needs. This will ensure all the free space, including all that previously held your now deleted files, is "wiped" clean.

 

Thanks.