Help me vanish without a trace from this laptop
November 13, 2020 8:30 AM Subscribe
How to wipe an old windows laptop if the 'restore factory settings' option is giving me an error?
Have an old windows laptop that I posted on freecycle. Someone's picking it up today, so I went to wipe it. But, when I tried to restore factory settings, it gave me the error message that it "could not find the recovery environment."
It looks like there are ways to boot it from a flash drive and get around this but honestly I'd rather not bother if I don't need to. Is there an easier way to ensure that all of my potentially sensitive info is off this machine before I hand it over? If I delete all my files, uninstall chrome, disconnect my Microsoft account and set up a local account that I hand the sign in info off for is that good enough?
Have an old windows laptop that I posted on freecycle. Someone's picking it up today, so I went to wipe it. But, when I tried to restore factory settings, it gave me the error message that it "could not find the recovery environment."
It looks like there are ways to boot it from a flash drive and get around this but honestly I'd rather not bother if I don't need to. Is there an easier way to ensure that all of my potentially sensitive info is off this machine before I hand it over? If I delete all my files, uninstall chrome, disconnect my Microsoft account and set up a local account that I hand the sign in info off for is that good enough?
Is it a hard drive or SSD? If it's a hard drive, just download DBAN and let it do it's thing.
Wiping an SSD is a little trickier.
If I delete all my files, uninstall chrome, disconnect my Microsoft account and set up a local account that I hand the sign in info off for is that good enough?
If you do that, someone like me can recover most of the deleted files. Is someone that's scrounging for an old computer likely to do that? Probably not. It's also possible that you have sensitive data written outside of the user directory that you're not aware of.
At the very least, you need to use a tool like sdelete rather than just deleting the files. Again, SSDs complicate this, although again, the realistic threat scenario of someone scouring an SSD looking for fragments of files with useful information on someone's old personal system is pretty unrealistic.
posted by Candleman at 8:43 AM on November 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
Wiping an SSD is a little trickier.
If I delete all my files, uninstall chrome, disconnect my Microsoft account and set up a local account that I hand the sign in info off for is that good enough?
If you do that, someone like me can recover most of the deleted files. Is someone that's scrounging for an old computer likely to do that? Probably not. It's also possible that you have sensitive data written outside of the user directory that you're not aware of.
At the very least, you need to use a tool like sdelete rather than just deleting the files. Again, SSDs complicate this, although again, the realistic threat scenario of someone scouring an SSD looking for fragments of files with useful information on someone's old personal system is pretty unrealistic.
posted by Candleman at 8:43 AM on November 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: It's a hard drive-- can I run DBAN if I don't have a copy of windows 8 or windows 10?
posted by geegollygosh at 8:47 AM on November 13, 2020
posted by geegollygosh at 8:47 AM on November 13, 2020
Unfortunately, DBAN does require installing it to a USB drive. Having something outside of the operating system of a drive is required in order to wipe it completely.
posted by Candleman at 9:01 AM on November 13, 2020
posted by Candleman at 9:01 AM on November 13, 2020
Also, if you didn't notice, I didn't look closely enough to the site I linked as DBAN - it's a company using it to advertise a commercial product. Actual link.
posted by Candleman at 9:47 AM on November 13, 2020
posted by Candleman at 9:47 AM on November 13, 2020
Use the Magic Key Finder to get the Windows key in use on the laptop, preserve this.
I can't find my link for downloading an .iso of Windows, but this is a thing that can be done; I did this a couple months ago - Win7 and Win10 for 2 laptops.
Made bootable USB keys.
Ran Eraser / DBan
Installed windows.
downloaded drivers and updates.
posted by theora55 at 3:34 PM on November 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
I can't find my link for downloading an .iso of Windows, but this is a thing that can be done; I did this a couple months ago - Win7 and Win10 for 2 laptops.
Made bootable USB keys.
Ran Eraser / DBan
Installed windows.
downloaded drivers and updates.
posted by theora55 at 3:34 PM on November 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
The thing is that completely erasing your tracks means overwriting the hard drive. If someone is coming to pick it up today, then depending on how large the drive is that could take more hours than you've got. There are more superficial methods (DBAN gives you a choice, iirc) but they might still take more time than you have. You might want to try to schedule another pickup time.
Also, just to be clear: erasing your hard drive like this also means that you're completely removing the operating system. If you don't have a recovery drive or media, and if you told the recipients they'd be getting it with an OS, then you might want to let them know (in case they're people who wouldn't know how to go about installing an OS and would prefer to pass on the computer.)
If you really don't have time to deal with this and think the recipients would accept it, you could also just remove your hard drive altogether and give it to them without it.
If I delete all my files, uninstall chrome, disconnect my Microsoft account and set up a local account that I hand the sign in info off for is that good enough?
If the people who'll be using the computer aren't tech savvy or nefarious, and especially if they'll be filling up the drive with their own files, then probably? But since you have no way of knowing, it's not great - it's definitely possible to recover data that's been deleted by regular means if it hasn't actually been overwritten yet.
posted by trig at 3:38 PM on November 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
Also, just to be clear: erasing your hard drive like this also means that you're completely removing the operating system. If you don't have a recovery drive or media, and if you told the recipients they'd be getting it with an OS, then you might want to let them know (in case they're people who wouldn't know how to go about installing an OS and would prefer to pass on the computer.)
If you really don't have time to deal with this and think the recipients would accept it, you could also just remove your hard drive altogether and give it to them without it.
If I delete all my files, uninstall chrome, disconnect my Microsoft account and set up a local account that I hand the sign in info off for is that good enough?
If the people who'll be using the computer aren't tech savvy or nefarious, and especially if they'll be filling up the drive with their own files, then probably? But since you have no way of knowing, it's not great - it's definitely possible to recover data that's been deleted by regular means if it hasn't actually been overwritten yet.
posted by trig at 3:38 PM on November 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
Anything less than this is going to leave traces of your information hanging around the system. Whether or not the recipient of such a system is going to do anything to try to recover that information is somewhat doubtful, but it is possible. There are extensive utilities to scan disks and recover files, so merely deleting last year's tax files may not have gotten rid of them to a point where they cannot be recovered.
On the flip side of the coin, when we buy used gear, we DBAN it and reload as well, because who knows what a seller left on a system. Viruses, keyloggers, etc.
posted by jgreco at 8:42 AM on November 13, 2020 [4 favorites]