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Ask Slashdot: How To Clean Up My Work Computer Before I Leave?

Posted by timothy on from the lysol-in-all-the-vents dept.

An anonymous reader writes "I'm leaving my current job for a new one. I've been at this job for 10+ years so I'm sure there is tons of personal stuff stored on my machine. Since I can't take it with me does any one have a suggestions of tools or practices to clean off all of that data. I've already got my personal documents and files. I'm most worried about CC, debit card numbers and web site passwords I've used in browsers. Does clearing the cache, cookies, temp files do a good enough job? BTW it's a Windows 7 system if that makes a difference."

6 of 547 comments (clear)

  1. dd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Boot a Linux live-cd and type dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda

    1. Re:dd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      dd if=/dev/zero | tee | /dev/sda will write them to your screen as well

      dd if=/dev/urandom bs 1024k | tee | dd of=/dev/sda bs=1024k is better for security and ASCII bells, as well as ruining your termcap temporarily and erasing faster.

      pv -ptres "Size of disk in gigabytes followed by a G" /dev/urandom | dd of=/dev/sda bs=1024k will provide a nifty progress bar

  2. DBAN! by brandor · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.dban.org/ Works wonders :)

  3. Wipe by Anrego · · Score: 5, Informative

    Depend on your IT setup, but if an option, just ask your sysadmin to re-image it. Don't discount the obvious and direct route. It's a reasonable request, you have justification, and if you are on good terms with the IT department I'm sure they'll hook you up.

  4. Re:Nuke it from orbit by admdrew · · Score: 5, Informative

    Agreed. http://www.dban.org/ (although you should probably verify with your IT that they simply reimage old machines).

    --
    LegendMUD
  5. Re:Nuke it from orbit by djl4570 · · Score: 5, Informative

    INAL but a complete wipe could be construed as destruction of employer owned data. I suggest a less invasive approach using Eraser from http://sourceforge.net/projects/eraser/ Uninstall the non standard software, use Eraser to wipe the personal and non business related files. Shrink the paging file to minimum size and run an erase of free space. A single pass should be adequate*. Then go to http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/entire/pr2003011a/warn/ and download the 16,000x16000 pixel image of the Helix nebula. Open multiple copies of this image until the system forces an expansion of the paging file. While this isn't a military grade approach it will leave the system intact. An intact system with business docs isn't suspicious. A freshly wiped system might draw attention.

    * Guttman only proposed his thirty-five pass hypothesis; so far as I can tell the hypothesis has never been tested on a real hard drive. The original hypothesis was based on disk drive technology in the mid nineties about the time magneto resistive technology entered the supply chain which suggests Guttman's research was on older disk drive technology. Does anyone know if forensics has ever recovered data from an overwritten hard drive?