It is often the case that ArrowQuick receives old PCs from our work in installing newer computer systems for clients. Some PCs are simply not able to continue a useful life for people and must be recycled or disposed of in the trash. But many times, an old Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon system can be refurbished for simple word processing and Internet usage.
No matter whether the computer will be recycled or refurbished, the previous owner’s data must remain private. If the hard drive is being recycled or trashed, there are a couple of methods for ensuring data no longer is accessible from the drive unit. Physically destroying the surface of the disks is important as this is where the data is stored as magnetic patterns.
The simplest way to destroy the surface of the disk platter(s) is to use a screwdriver or chisel as a lance and pierce the hard drive platter in several locations to break the disk. Any method that disrupts the surface of the disk platter and the magnetic medium is important. Disabling just the read/write mechanism is not enough as the disk could be removed and scanned with another mechanism; this is difficult but not impossible.
For those people refurbishing their PC or Mac for someone else to use, there are programs that can securely erase the drive in the computer. If you use FDISK, FORMAT utilities, or the DELETE operating system command for data removal, there is always a chance to recover deleted files (using undelete file or some data recovery software) and use them against the owner.
ArrowQuick recommends you to run a free utility for the hard drives you want to dispose of, recycle, re-use, sell or donate. Eraser is one such program that is free. Eraser is a secure data removal tool, which allows you to remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it with carefully selected patterns. Active@’s KillDisk is powerful and compact software that allows you to destroy all data on hard drives completely, excluding any possibility of future recovery of deleted files and folders.
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