Ask Owen

I just managed to sell my computer on eBay and want to make sure that I wipe the hard disk clean before I ship the machine. Is it enough to just delete my files?

It’s always a good idea to wipe clean your hard disk before you pass it on to someone. Can you just imagine the harm that someone could do if they got their hands on all your data? And this is even more the case if you’re passing it on to a complete stranger.

So, how do you get down to it? Deleting your files is a start; but it may surprise you to know that when you delete a file, your computer doesn’t actually delete it; it just deletes a pointer to it and marks the space as available. There are a number of tools on the market that let you undelete files; so you really need something a bit more aggressive; something that permanently wipes the data by overwriting it with garbage. One such product is Drivescrubber, a specialised product that overwrites your data up to 100 times. No way anyone can retrieve your data after that. Drivescrubber is currently on sale for around $10. That’s not a high price to be paying for securing your data.

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