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

[S. Saunders]

On Sun, August 13, 2006 13:52, Roger House wrote:

> Apparently the recommend procedure is to overwrite everything three
> times, once with all zero bits, once with all one bits, and once with
> random values.

Depending on your level of paranoia and/or the value of the data being
protected, the above may not be enough.

For 99% of legitimate use (i.e. "ordinary" personal/financial data), it
will be.

For someone willing to spend hundreds (up to thousands) of dollars, a few
disk-recovery specialty houses (and, obviously, quite a few gov't
agencies) with clean-room operations can recover a complete disk-image
from the process above.

Many people feel that paranoia is cool, and follow stricter protocols even
though they have no real need for it.  Me, for example...  :-]



Not responding to the following, but preserving it here for the value of
the data...

> You can recycle the computer at
>
>         Computer Recycling Center
>         3227 Santa Rosa Ave.
>         Santa Rosa, CA 95407
>         888-887-3372
>         www.crc.org
>
>         Drive exactly 1 mile south of Yolanda to just past the RCU Auto
>         Services.  Turn right and drive past the first building and turn
>         right.  Printers cost $5 per 25lb.  Hours:  Sun. closed, Mon-Fri
>         9-4, Sat 10-2.  Max of 5 pieces on Sat.


- Steve S.