A Clean Reinstall

  • Thread starter Thread starter ibeetb
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ibeetb

I am reinstalling Win XP over a version of WIN XP in hopes that I am wiping
the hard drive clean. Would this be enough to clean the HD or should I just
replace the hard drive? Basically, I have to return to my employer and don't
want them to see what I had on there
 
Okay - so if I reinstall Win XP over an existing Win XP install per your
directions and wipe out the memory of the former one, would anyone be able
to go in and reverse and see the previous contents of the hard drive?
 
ibeetb said:
Okay - so if I reinstall Win XP over an existing Win XP install per your
directions and wipe out the memory of the former one, would anyone be able
to go in and reverse and see the previous contents of the hard drive?
Click to expand...

Yes, if they have the right tools. The only way to make sure no one can
recover old drive is to physically destroy it.
 
ibeetb said:
I am reinstalling Win XP over a version of WIN XP in hopes that I am
wiping the hard drive clean. Would this be enough to clean the HD or
should I just replace the hard drive? Basically, I have to return to
my employer and don't want them to see what I had on there
Click to expand...

Better to use a disk wiping program and then clean install if you need
to return the machine with an operating system on it.

A free one is Darik's Boot and Nuke.
http://dban.sourceforge.net/

Malke
 
ibeetb said:
I am reinstalling Win XP over a version of WIN XP in hopes that I am wiping
the hard drive clean. Would this be enough to clean the HD or should I just
replace the hard drive? Basically, I have to return to my employer and don't
want them to see what I had on there
Click to expand...


To protect your personal information and data from any future users
of average skills, you should, at the very least, format the hard drive.
If you wish to do a more thorough job of protecting your friend's
personal data, WipeDrive
(http://www.whitecanyon.com/wipedrive-erase-hard-drive.php) meets U.S.
DoD standards for securely cleaning surplus unclassified hard drives,
and could be used before formatting and reinstalling the OS and
applications.



--

Bruce Chambers

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safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

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ibeetb said:
Okay - so if I reinstall Win XP over an existing Win XP install per
your directions and wipe out the memory of the former one, would
anyone be able to go in and reverse and see the previous contents of
the hard drive?
Click to expand...


There is no simple answer. It depends on how paranoid you want to be.
Realize that no matter *what* you do, there is always a remnant of what was
written still present on the disk, and using sophisticated techniques, a
determined invader can sometimes recover it.For that reason, the US
government doesn't rely on any software techniques to destroy really
sensitive data, but physically melts the drive in a furnace.

Most of us don't need that kind of security. Depending on what is on the
drive, and recognizing that most people will neither know how, nor want to
bother trying, to recover any old data on the drive, a simple format is
sufficient for most people. And for the enormous majority of people a
zero-fill utility is more than sufficient. If it were me, I wouldn't go any
further than that, but only you know what is on the drive and how much your
employer might be interested in it.

If you want a zero-fill utility, there are several downloadable choices that
Google will find for you. There probably isn't any particular reson to
prefer one of them over the others.
 
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