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Procedure for cleaning up hard drive before returning a leased computer

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by gregh

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I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for what should be done to the hard drive of a leased computer before it is returned to the lease company? I have 19 computers to return and I only have 13 original Win 98 CDs so I don't know that I want to go the format route. I do have Norton Ghost. There is one application installed on 8 of these computers that contains company information. I could uninstall the application but I don't think that would completly remove the risk of my company losing proprietary information.

Any advice is appreciated

2 replies

by oz_media

There are actually a lot of utilities for this thing, pretty much any data can be recovered with enouth work and knowledge, yet most don't bother as it is costly and time consuming.

I would recommend a standard military overwrite that meets government specs for data erasing. There are a few utilities for this, there are about a half dozen FREE disk wipe utilities found here: http://tinyurl.com/2mods

Beynd that, unless you have Jimmy Hoffa's new address on your PC's then not too many people would incur the time and costs of recovery from that point.

OM

by hal 9000

However if you have some really important data involved on the HDD it is best just to replace them rather than try to clean them up.

Remember that the company who you rented them from knows your business and they may just like to know exactly what you have been up to so they could recover any and all the data if they where to set their minds to it {or one of their staff who gets paid by the competition.}

So depending on the industry and the sensitivity of the data carried on the HDD's you will have to weigh the possibilities of the data becoming available outside the company and the potential for damage. If it is a high degree of damage just replace the HDD's after all they are far cheaper than any protracted court battle and it will make the person responsible for renting the units think twice before doing it again.

Col

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