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Thread ID: 70496 2006-07-05 07:30:00 Im getting rid of a 98 rob_on_guitar (4196) PC World Chat
Post ID Timestamp Content User
468779 2006-07-05 07:30:00 Well my grandpops pc is at my house (he passed away sometime ago). I have 2 Pc's as it is.

I want to give it away, but i hear you should delete all personal info etc.

Would that be with a format?

Anyways would i get any $ for it? It has a monitor, hard drive, cd drive,printer, external dial up modem etc

It aint flash or pretty.

But either way i am going to get rid of it.
rob_on_guitar (4196)
468780 2006-07-05 07:37:00 An fdisk isn't sufficient..I'd use a NAS-grade shredder first, then fdisk.

SpyBot Advanced has a really great shredder that can make up to 99 passes if you have the time, electricity and inclination. Five passes is good enough for the Military, but you can go a little further if you want.
SurferJoe46 (51)
468781 2006-07-05 07:39:00 Five passes is good enough for the Military, but you can go a little further if you want.
I thought they destroyed the drives after wiping them?
Greven (91)
468782 2006-07-05 11:14:00 then I can have a 98 fire in my back yard? :badpc: :lol: rob_on_guitar (4196)
468783 2006-07-05 11:49:00 Try the following procedure for shredding a disk for free:

Visit www.slax.org and download any of the CD images on that page. These are live linux CDs that will allow you to boot without using the hard drive. The "frodo" version is the smallest (50MB) but any of them will work.

Burn the image to a blank writable CD, leave the CD in the drive and reboot. It should show a screen with the slax clover leaf logo then will boot into its default mode.

When it shows you the login prompt you just need to log in using "root" and "toor" as it says on screen, then type the following commands (exactly as written - case sensitive). It doesn't matter if the first displays an error.

umount /dev/hda1
shred -v /dev/hda

This should constantly print lines to the screen telling you how far through it is. It will run 25 passes over the hard drive using patterns designed for removing magnetic traces from the hard disk. You can leave it unattended as it may take a few hours. You can also interrupt it at any time but the shred won't be quite as effective. Once the shred is complete, type:

shutdown -h now

The computer will shut down, eject the CD, and turn off after you've removed it.

This technique should work on the vast majority of computers but if you have any problems please just post the error messages here and we can guide you through the process.
TGoddard (7263)
468784 2006-07-05 11:51:00 Oh, and just in case - this is completely and utterly irreversible and will destroy the contents of the first connected hard drive permanently. That's the point, but one has to say these things :) TGoddard (7263)
468785 2006-07-05 12:25:00 Just format and reinstall Win98 then see if you can get $20 for it. Rob99 (151)
468786 2006-07-05 12:28:00 Do we type format C: in DOS mode will work? MTLance (6768)
468787 2006-07-05 12:41:00 That will 'wipe' it MTLance, but not unrecoverably. If somebody wanted to they could recover most of the data without too much difficulty. That's why some people use 'shredder' programs to properly wipe the disk in an unrecoverable way, if they have sensitive data or are security-conscious. george12 (7)
468788 2006-07-05 12:50:00 That will 'wipe' it MTLance, but not unrecoverably. If somebody wanted to they could recover most of the data without too much difficulty. That's why some people use 'shredder' programs to properly wipe the disk in an unrecoverable way, if they have sensitive data or are security-conscious. OK. But how can recover the data once the HDD is formatted? MTLance (6768)
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