Computers are always getting better and faster. There is always something new coming out in the computer world. For this reason, computers are disposed of quite often. Whether you are selling them at your garage sell for $10 or for a couple hundred dollars on eBay, you need to take precautions. There are steps you need to take before selling to be sure it is safe.
We input a lot of personal information on our computer – credit card numbers, passwords, addresses, social security numbers – to name a few. Because of cookies, this information gets saved to the hard drive of the computer. If you have entered something into your computer or saved a file, that information can be found somewhere on your hard drive.
It is important to erase the hard drive before selling your computer. If you simply delete the file it can still be retrieved from the hard drive. Even reformatting is reversible. Your personal information can still be found by the computer’s new owner. You need to go one step further.
You need to do a secure erase on your computer. A secure erase will completely clean your computer of any previously stored information. In order to do a secure erase, you need to purchase software that will overwrite every sector of the hard drive with binary 1′s and 0′s. This way the new computer owner will never be able to recover any data from your computer.
There are a few companies who sell this software. For example, White Canyon sells a product called WipeDrive that will overwrite every sector of your hard drive. These companies have made this process easy and inexpensive. Avoiding losing your identity is worth spending a few dollars.
Every computer has personal information stored on it. Businesses, police departments, banks, and grocery stores (to name a few) need to be sure that before disposing of old computers they clean the hard drive. The information stored on public computers can be private to the business and to many employees and customers.
Wiping the home computer is just as important. Identity theft is very prevalent. Do not make stealing your identity easy. Do not allow your personal information to go to a stranger. With passwords and credit card numbers, criminals can send your financial life into a downward spiral. Simply run a secure erase software on your computer so you can sleep at night.
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