what to delete on returned computer

I'm about to return the defective laptop and wonder if I should delete
the entire AppData folder that appears under my username. I think I've
deleted everything else that I could, but if I should look at other
things, let me know.

Thank you,

--
Jo-Anne

Jo-Anne wrote on 3/30/2015 11:56 AM:
I'm about to return the defective laptop and wonder if I should delete the entire AppData folder that appears under my
username. I think I've deleted everything else that I could, but if I should look at other things, let me know.

Thank you,

Can you do a restore? or does the return have to be as is so they can see some issue? Normally new machines like Dell
etc have a factory restore feature. That would take care of anything. I'll grant that the paranoid person might
suggest that there may still be some sectors of the HD not written to and might leave data behind, but I do think that's
a bit paranoid.

On 3/30/2015 11:05 AM, Big_Al wrote:
Jo-Anne wrote on 3/30/2015 11:56 AM:
I'm about to return the defective laptop and wonder if I should delete
the entire AppData folder that appears under my
username. I think I've deleted everything else that I could, but if I
should look at other things, let me know.

Thank you,

Can you do a restore? or does the return have to be as is so they can
see some issue? Normally new machines like Dell etc have a factory
restore feature. That would take care of anything. I'll grant that
the paranoid person might suggest that there may still be some sectors
of the HD not written to and might leave data behind, but I do think
that's a bit paranoid.


Thank you, Al. I'll see if there is a factory restore. That would
certainly make things easier.

Jo-Anne

On Mon, 30 Mar 2015 17:05:28 +0100, Big_Al wrote:

Jo-Anne wrote on 3/30/2015 11:56 AM:
I'm about to return the defective laptop and wonder if I should delete the entire AppData folder that appears under my
username. I think I've deleted everything else that I could, but if I should look at other things, let me know.

Thank you,

Can you do a restore? or does the return have to be as is so they can see some issue? Normally new machines like Dell
etc have a factory restore feature. That would take care of anything. I'll grant that the paranoid person might
suggest that there may still be some sectors of the HD not written to and might leave data behind, but I do think that's
a bit paranoid.

To remove paranoia, I use EaseUs Backup (the free version). It has a wipe function, aswell as a very useful clone feature if you buy a new disk.

--
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours -- Stephen Roberts

On 3/30/2015 11:14 AM, Tough Guy no. 1265 wrote:
On Mon, 30 Mar 2015 17:05:28 +0100, Big_Al wrote:

Jo-Anne wrote on 3/30/2015 11:56 AM:
I'm about to return the defective laptop and wonder if I should
delete the entire AppData folder that appears under my
username. I think I've deleted everything else that I could, but if I
should look at other things, let me know.

Thank you,

Can you do a restore? or does the return have to be as is so they can
see some issue? Normally new machines like Dell
etc have a factory restore feature. That would take care of
anything. I'll grant that the paranoid person might
suggest that there may still be some sectors of the HD not written to
and might leave data behind, but I do think that's
a bit paranoid.

To remove paranoia, I use EaseUs Backup (the free version). It has a
wipe function, aswell as a very useful clone feature if you buy a new disk.


Thank you! I'm not all that paranoid, especially since I had put very
little on the machine. I did manage to find the factory restore and am
in the process of doing it right now. Dell's instructions were wrong
(directing you to an option that doesn't exist), but I picked what
seemed the best alternative, and it's working.

I'll bookmark your post and will probably download the program you
mentioned--for future use.

Jo-Anne

On Mon, 30 Mar 2015 21:54:26 +0100, John wrote:

On Mon, 30 Mar 2015 10:56:20 -0500, Jo-Anne
wrote:

I'm about to return the defective laptop and wonder if I should delete
the entire AppData folder that appears under my username. I think I've
deleted everything else that I could, but if I should look at other
things, let me know.

Log in as Admin in safe mode and bin the user. Do not save the files.
That is usually sufficient.
J.


Thank you,

I prefer to wipe the unused areas (after deleting all personal stuff),
in case the Salvation Army is planning to steal my identity.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On 3/30/2015 3:54 PM, John wrote:
On Mon, 30 Mar 2015 10:56:20 -0500, Jo-Anne
wrote:

I'm about to return the defective laptop and wonder if I should delete
the entire AppData folder that appears under my username. I think I've
deleted everything else that I could, but if I should look at other
things, let me know.

Log in as Admin in safe mode and bin the user. Do not save the files.
That is usually sufficient.
J.


Thank you,

Thank you, John. I already reinstalled the operating system, so that's
probably sufficient.

--
Jo-Anne

On 3/30/2015 4:25 PM, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Mon, 30 Mar 2015 21:54:26 +0100, John wrote:

On Mon, 30 Mar 2015 10:56:20 -0500, Jo-Anne
wrote:

I'm about to return the defective laptop and wonder if I should delete
the entire AppData folder that appears under my username. I think I've
deleted everything else that I could, but if I should look at other
things, let me know.

Log in as Admin in safe mode and bin the user. Do not save the files.
That is usually sufficient.
J.


Thank you,

I prefer to wipe the unused areas (after deleting all personal stuff),
in case the Salvation Army is planning to steal my identity.


Does reinstalling the operating system wipe everything?

--
Jo-Anne

On Mon, 30 Mar 2015 19:22:42 -0500, Jo-Anne wrote:

On 3/30/2015 4:25 PM, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Mon, 30 Mar 2015 21:54:26 +0100, John wrote:

On Mon, 30 Mar 2015 10:56:20 -0500, Jo-Anne
wrote:

I'm about to return the defective laptop and wonder if I should delete
the entire AppData folder that appears under my username. I think I've
deleted everything else that I could, but if I should look at other
things, let me know.

Log in as Admin in safe mode and bin the user. Do not save the files.
That is usually sufficient.
J.


Thank you,

I prefer to wipe the unused areas (after deleting all personal stuff),
in case the Salvation Army is planning to steal my identity.


Does reinstalling the operating system wipe everything?

No.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On Mon, 30 Mar 2015 19:22:42 -0500, Jo-Anne
wrote:

Does reinstalling the operating system wipe everything?


It depends on what you do and how you do it, but usually yes.

On Mon, 30 Mar 2015 18:12:36 -0700, Ken Blake wrote:

On Mon, 30 Mar 2015 19:22:42 -0500, Jo-Anne
wrote:

Does reinstalling the operating system wipe everything?

It depends on what you do and how you do it, but usually yes.

I don't think so.

It can take quite a few hours to wipe a hard drive; people would notice
if Windows did that on a reinstallation.

Even formatting doesn't wipe a hard drive.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On 3/30/2015 8:13 PM, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Mon, 30 Mar 2015 18:12:36 -0700, Ken Blake wrote:

On Mon, 30 Mar 2015 19:22:42 -0500, Jo-Anne
wrote:

Does reinstalling the operating system wipe everything?

It depends on what you do and how you do it, but usually yes.

I don't think so.

It can take quite a few hours to wipe a hard drive; people would notice
if Windows did that on a reinstallation.

Even formatting doesn't wipe a hard drive.

ss-tools.com
data-eraser

Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Mon, 30 Mar 2015 18:12:36 -0700, Ken Blake wrote:

On Mon, 30 Mar 2015 19:22:42 -0500, Jo-Anne
wrote:

Does reinstalling the operating system wipe everything?
It depends on what you do and how you do it, but usually yes.

I don't think so.

It can take quite a few hours to wipe a hard drive; people would notice
if Windows did that on a reinstallation.

Even formatting doesn't wipe a hard drive.


This is what "dd" is for :-)

It can quite nicely write zeros in a
partition, and do a single pass.

This is a house-cleaning script I use,
intended for a certain FAT32 partition.

What I would do (for this example), is
delete all the files on the E: partition.
(The Ridgecrop formatter can make this
really fast.) Now, the partition has no visible
files, but any erased files are still there
(hiding).

Once the partition is empty, I run the script.

dd.exe if=/dev/zero of=E:\big01.dd bs=65536 count=65535
dd.exe if=/dev/zero of=E:\big02.dd bs=65536 count=65535
dd.exe if=/dev/zero of=E:\big03.dd bs=65536 count=65535
dd.exe if=/dev/zero of=E:\big04.dd bs=65536 count=65535
dd.exe if=/dev/zero of=E:\big05.dd bs=65536 count=65535
dd.exe if=/dev/zero of=E:\big06.dd bs=65536 count=65535
dd.exe if=/dev/zero of=E:\big07.dd bs=65536 count=65535
dd.exe if=/dev/zero of=E:\big08.dd bs=65536 count=65535
dd.exe if=/dev/zero of=E:\big09.dd bs=65536 count=65535
dd.exe if=/dev/zero of=E:\big10.dd bs=65536 count=65535
dd.exe if=/dev/zero of=E:\big11.dd bs=65536 count=65535
dd.exe if=/dev/zero of=E:\big12.dd bs=65536 count=65535
dd.exe if=/dev/zero of=E:\big13.dd bs=65536 count=65535
dd.exe if=/dev/zero of=E:\big14.dd bs=65536 count=65535
dd.exe if=/dev/zero of=E:\big15.dd bs=65536 count=65535
dd.exe if=/dev/zero of=E:\big16.dd bs=65536 count=65535
dd.exe if=/dev/zero of=E:\big17.dd bs=65536 count=65535
dd.exe if=/dev/zero of=E:\big18.dd bs=65536 count=65535
dd.exe if=/dev/zero of=E:\big19.dd bs=65536 count=65535

Since FAT32 has a 4GB limit, each "write" operation
can only erase ~4GB. Those commands are just under
the limit. Each file created will be 4GB in size and
all zeros. So 19*4=76GB of zeroing.

At the end, I would erase the 19 files, and then
E: would be as clean as a whistle. No data recovery
software can find anything after that. I could then
install an OS if I wanted, restore some stuff, and
there'd be no "left-overs" to recover. (Using the
Ridgecrop formatter should also remove the filenames
in the FAT.)

On NTFS, you can just use one command and wipe the
entire partition. Like this

dd.exe if=/dev/zero of=E:\big01.dd bs=65536

The file in this case, should span the entire E:\
partition, before the command complains it has
run out of space.

The "dd.exe" is from here, version 0.6b3.

http://www.chrysocome.net/dd

Paul

On 3/30/2015 8:12 PM, Ken Blake wrote:
On Mon, 30 Mar 2015 19:22:42 -0500, Jo-Anne
wrote:

Does reinstalling the operating system wipe everything?


It depends on what you do and how you do it, but usually yes.


Thank you, Ken. When I did the reinstall, I said not to keep any files.
That was all I could do at the time.

--
Jo-Anne

On 3/30/2015 10:13 PM, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Mon, 30 Mar 2015 18:12:36 -0700, Ken Blake wrote:

On Mon, 30 Mar 2015 19:22:42 -0500, Jo-Anne
wrote:

Does reinstalling the operating system wipe everything?

It depends on what you do and how you do it, but usually yes.

I don't think so.

It can take quite a few hours to wipe a hard drive; people would notice
if Windows did that on a reinstallation.

Even formatting doesn't wipe a hard drive.


Thank you, Gene. I guess if there's a next time, I'll do better at
getting rid of my data. Fortunately, there wasn't much on the computer.
The only personal files were from Thunderbird and Firefox, and at least
those would have been deleted, even if not fully erased.

--
Jo-Anne