Question About Computers

[cityhawk 12]

I've heard that you can never completely get rid of everything on a computer hard drive, like you can dump your temporary internet files and get rid of everything in your recycle bin, but they are all put on some kind of "back burner" in the hard drive somewhere. Is this true?

[Hahayoudied 3]

I don't really know, but I do know that computers often leave fragments of files after  the files are deleted.

 Also, even reformating a hard drive could leave fragments of files behind. This is why you recycle the hard drives that you don't need anymore by sending the hard drive to a hardware recycle center, otherwise, some lucky computer hacker might find the hard drive throw away, and the person will try to find any personal info by exaimming the fragmented files or, it might release poison in the ground or water.

EDIT: Police often uses the computer hard drive that is taken from a suspect or a criminal if the suspect or criminal have a computer. Why? The police would try to find as much clues and evidence. If the hard drive have been reformatted, then the police would try to find and exaime all of the fragments files they can to find clues or evidence.

[Voar Tok 4]

No, it is not true that you can't get rid of everything on a hard drive. There are plenty of ways to destroy the data beyond ability to recover. One way, if you really, REALLY want to make sure, is to take the hard drive apart and break the data platters. The more practical method is to do a low-level reformat on the hard drive. Erase it from the computer's BIOS level, and everything on the hard drive will be erased because the BIOS will go through the hard drive and set every last bit back to zero. It'll even leave the drive without a format.

If you have a really strong magnet, that's another way.

Also, you don't ever send a hard drive to a hardware recycling center if you're concerned about keeping the files safe. They can recover the data just as easily as a hacker.

What it ultimately boils down to is that the only way to guarantee that your files are gone before getting rid of a hard drive is to either destroy the drive platters or overwrite all the data on the drive (you can do that either through the BIOS-level reformat or using a really strong magnet.

The reason why this is a concern to most people is because when you delete a file on a PC, Windows doesn't actually delete the file. What it does is mark the space as usable, and the data just sits there until the computer writes something in its place.

[Zelgadis 638]

I have an option called "zero all data" should I decide to reinitialize the hard drive. Basically, what it does is turns every single bit on the HDD into a "0." It takes many hours for the cycle to complete.

I seriously doubt anyone could find personal information after one of those.

ISF

[hym 358]

Originally posted by: zelgadis I have an option called "zero all data" should I decide to reinitialize the hard drive. Basically, what it does is turns every single bit on the HDD into a "0." It takes many hours for the cycle to complete.

I seriously doubt anyone could find personal information after one of those.

ISF

quote>

It depends.  Presently, the Department of Defense standard is to overwrite the data at least 7 times.  That takes several hours at least; depending on the drive and the software, that can take over half a day to finish.  Not that they recommend the average Joe doing this, but the DoD takes it one step further and physically reduces the hard drive to a fine powder.

[Voar Tok 4]

Originally posted by: zelgadis I have an option called "zero all data" should I decide to reinitialize the hard drive. Basically, what it does is turns every single bit on the HDD into a "0." It takes many hours for the cycle to complete.

I seriously doubt anyone could find personal information after one of those.

ISF

quote>

Yeah, that's what a BIOS level format does to a hard drive.  It isn't possible to recover data from any hard drive where every last bit has been turned into a zero.

[Boggy1 45]

What always got me was the fact that when you delete something on a PC, and then empty the recycle bin..the data isn't gone until something overwrites it. The computer marks the space where the data was as being 'empty', but the data is still there.

[your_adress_here 11]

Throw your computer in a fire.

[Goldfish4209 9]

Not really true. Windows keeps track of files by using a catalog of files called the MFT (master file table). Basically, when you delete something, the listing for the file gets deleted from the MFT but the file itself it still there until some other file gets written over the physical spot the file was on. This is why file recovery programs work.

[TV-VCR 14]

Originally posted by: Goldfish4209This is why file recovery programs work.quote>

Only if it hasn't been too long since the file was deleted. Over time other files will eventually take it's place.

[Meg 368]

In the old days, we could get a large file that is supposed to be there and create a file that is many consecutive copies of that file and then save that, in multiple copies, until the disk drive is full.

For instance, on a work computer, we could get a copy of the phone directory, or the internal regulations or something else innocuous and copy and save as many times as it takes to fill the hard drive then delete them all.  Not a foolproof method but it can overwrite a lot of the space.

But that was back when a hard drive didn't have much capacity.  It would take forever these days.

[Something_started 5]

if you really don't want it then get a torch and melt it into a liquid form. All a basic fire would do is heat it up it wouldn't get hot enough to destroy what ever it is you want destroyed.

[Hahayoudied 3]

Also, you can destroy a hard drive evenually by just play SC4 with loads of plugins, and without any ventalation space or external cooling system. It could take weeks to do that.

If you have a Dell computer, you can buy and install Dell PC tune up software, and one of it's function is it can premently sweep out the "deleted" files and delete the "deleted" files for good.

You can also purposely download a destructive computer virus to delete the files for you, although it might cause the computer crash or get the BSOD.

[Voar Tok 4]

Originally posted by: Something_started if you really don't want it then get a torch and melt it into a liquid form. All a basic fire would do is heat it up it wouldn't get hot enough to destroy what ever it is you want destroyed.quote>

Or you could have the computer erase the data for you with either a BIOS level format or professional software.  (The software isn't that expensive).

Originally posted by: Hahayoudied Also, you can destroy a hard drive evenually by just play SC4 with loads of plugins, and without any ventalation space or external cooling system. It could take weeks to do that.quote>

You couldn't do that anymore.  Computers are designed to protect themselves from users trying to do stuff like that.

You can also purposely download a destructive computer virus to delete the files for you, although it might cause the computer crash or get the BSOD.quote>

Most of them don't do anything other than delete the fie and empty the recycle bin.  Most of the time, the files are still there.

[Hahayoudied 3]

Voar Tok: I ment over heating the hard drive by using programs that overloads (such as SC4) computers and cause the computer to overheat (including the hard drive). However, this only works on laptops (laptops often have crappy cooling systems), and desktop computers that have crappy cooling system.

 When the hard drive is over heated too much and too long, it would fail and the hard drive would be extremely differcult to read it's files since the hard drive would be super slow and full of long lasting lags, or the hard drive won't work at all.

By the way, I caused my laptop's hard drive to fail several months ago when I played SC4 with loads of plugins in large cities frequently. The SC4 program often overloaded the graphic card and the processor, which results a lot of heat generated. The heat then flows around in the computer, affecting the hard drive. Frequent and long overheating would slowly cause the hard drive to fail.

[Eastwinn 6]

Originally posted by: Boggy1 What always got me was the fact that when you delete something on a PC, and then empty the recycle bin..the data isn't gone until something overwrites it. The computer marks the space where the data was as being 'empty', but the data is still there.quote>

 

You could always defragment. AFAIK, that also removes any files set to overwrite.

[Goldfish4209 9]

Originally posted by: TV-VCR

Originally posted by: Goldfish4209This is why file recovery programs work.quote>

Only if it hasn't been too long since the file was deleted. Over time other files will eventually take it's place.quote>

Yes, this is true. I've never used these programs before, but I would guess that they have a relatively low success rate.

Skigeek: You could probably do that by installing large video games a couple times over these days. Flight Sim X is 13Gb.

[coolotter88 2]

you can recover data from an overheated hard drive by freezing it in a freezer, then turning it on. you have about a 30 minute window and after that, the hard drive dies forever.

[screamingman12 30]

Originally posted by: Goldfish4209 .

Skigeek: You could probably do that by installing large video games a couple times over these days. Flight Sim X is 13Gb.quote>

Or just copying folders of Linux distro .iso files

[SimRabbit 48]

Or just copy a library of PORN.

Your HDD will be destroyed by a virus eventually.

[TV-VCR 14]

Better yet (in a physcially non destructive way) , Mersenne Twister, Gutmann Wipe, Verify All Passes, and 5 rounds.

http://dban.sourceforge.net