54
submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by NotSpez@lemm.ee to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world

I have a couple of old laptops lying around and want to throw them away, but have been cautious to do so because of privacy concerns of data still on the hard drives. What is the best way to wipe them? Or should I take them out and physically destroy them?

They are running windows vista and 10 I think.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] theKalash@feddit.ch 2 points 11 months ago

Just turn on disk encryption.

[-] HC4L@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

Cracking encryption gets easier over time. This is a timebomb.

[-] jayrhacker@kbin.social 0 points 11 months ago

True, but if all the data was encrypted, then the drive formatted it would require physically dismantling an HDD in a clean room to recover data, for SSDs the wear leveling makes it hard to fully erase anything, but again, after encrypting and formatting the cost of the tools needed to get the data back are well above the potential benefit (i.e. there are easier ways to get people's personal info)

[-] Bipta@kbin.social 2 points 11 months ago

I don't understand why filling the drive isn't enough to overcome wear leveling.

[-] theamigan@lemmy.dynatron.me 2 points 11 months ago

It absolutely is. The thing that isn't enough is doing a full disk TRIM, but I haven't seen that recommended. A single pass of dd if=/dev/zero is plenty adequate.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2023
54 points (98.2% liked)

No Stupid Questions

35832 readers
300 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS