[NBLUG/talk] Best way to dispose of a working computer

[Lincoln Peters]

On Saturday 12 August 2006 08:09, Sean wrote:
> I don't have any contact information, but I am familiar with the usual
> donation process.
>
> What usually happens is you donate the computer, and then they give
> you a tax-deductable receipt (usually... some are not set up to do
> that) of the approximate worth of the computer. Once they erase your
> data, they may mail you a receipt for the data destruction.
>
> When it comes to confidential personal data, I find that I cannot
> bring myself to trust everyone to handle my data properly, as
> eventually I will run into someone who will not. As such, I prefer to
> erase my own data before handing it over.
>
> I will leave the exact program to use up to the others in this group,
> as I use a Windows based open source (under GNU) program called
> eraser. It can take some time to erase the data (hours to days), but
> only a professional (usually at great expense) will be able to recover
> anything.

I prefer the "shred" utility, which you should be able to find on any Knoppix 
CD.  If the disk you want to erase is /dev/hda, you can use the following 
command:

shred -fvxz /dev/hda

This may take a few days (it makes 26 passes!), depending on the size and 
speed of the disk being shredded, but at that point it becomes so insanely 
difficult to recover that it's rarely worth it to even try.


-- 
Lincoln Peters		<sampln at sbcglobal.net>

Penguin Trivia #46:
	Animals who are not penguins can only wish they were.
		-- Chicago Reader 10/15/82