Data Wiping – Wiping Your Personal Information Away

Be careful when disposing or selling your computer because you might be giving the buyer more than what he has bargained for. There are already many reported incidents of identity theft arising from the acquisition of data from the victim´s hard drive. In some of those cases, the thief didn´t even have to exert much effort in obtaining the sensitive information that he needs. Buyers of previously-owned PCs, especially those with hard drives, could easily obtain data from those units. While many of those files are inconsequential, there are times when the data retrieved by the buyer include medical records, credit card numbers, and other critical personal information.

Nuking Data

Before you give away that old PC of yours, make sure that the contents of its hard drive have been wiped out. There are several ways by which you could do this. Here are five of them:

• File/Folder Deletion – The most common way of clearing your hard drive is by deleting all of its contents, as well as emptying the recycle bin. Needless to say, this is the easiest way to get rid of files or folders from your storage media. However, file deletion is not that effective in wiping out data completely. The process only removes the file pointer, but not the file itself. The operating system may not see the file, but the latter still actually exists in the discs. Hence, the supposedly erased contents may still be recovered through the use of a data recovery software.


• Reformatting – Reformatting your hard drive wipes out all the data recorded therein. However, this doesn´t mean that the erased files cannot be recovered anymore as the procedure only destroys the data structure. Thus, the files that were previously stored therein can still be recovered.


• Degausser – This data-wiping method involves the use of a strong electronic magnet that wipes out the contents of magnetic media through the reverse application of the magnetic field.


• Overwriting – Instead of deleting the file, some users just overwrite on the existing data. However, this is not an effective file removal method since the attacker may still be able to see underneath the new file. Besides, there might still be files in the disk that may have not been overwritten.
• Destruction – Destroying your hard disk completely will definitely eliminate all data in it. However, this is a very wasteful and unnecessary option.

How Should It Be Done?

The five data-wiping methods mentioned above do not seem to provide a very good solution on how to completely eliminate files and folders from your hard drive or other storage media. There is an effective solution to this dilemma though, and it might not even cost you a cent. There are specialized data-wiping software in the market which guarantee the complete removal of data in various storage media. Their task may seem simple, but the process by which they erase data is somewhat complicated.

The program undertakes several erase passes on the disk. The first pass always includes the replacement of the original stored data with meaningless patterns of zeroes and ones. In the second one, the pattern created by the first pass is arranged. The final pass involves the random distribution of the ones and zeroes on the entire disk. This completely deletes all system files, including administrator data, system registry traces, and Windows logs. This makes the original data on the media unrecoverable. Some data-wiping applications also feature low level format options which could completely sterilize the disk.

If you want a different program for the purpose, try a file shredder. This application basically employs the same file removal method used by other specialized data-wiping software.

Shared Blessing

If spending top dollars for data-wiping applications is unappealing for you, then try the various freeware or shareware programs on the Internet. Many of them are as efficient as those which have price tags on it. One of the popular data-wiping programs that can be downloaded for free is Erasure.

When disposing your hard drive or any other storage media, make sure that the data therein are completely deleted in order to avoid being a victim of identity theft. The process can be tedious at times, but taking this precautionary measure can go a very long way in sparing you from any headache caused by the malicious use of sensitive personal information.

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