Digital Trends

After upgrading to a new computer, you may find yourself feeling magnanimous by donating your old system to a school, church, children's shelter or charity organization. It's a great thing to do and you should be commended for your generosity. The one thing you should not do, however, is donate that computer without completely eliminating all traces of data from the hard drive. Here’s why.

With the tiniest bit of effort, even a pre-teen with little to no computer skill can use simple and free programs to undelete all the files you thought you deleted. That's right. Nearly everything that was ever on your computer - your resume, love letters, tax records, private emails and even the naked pics of you in Brazil - everything has a remnant trace on that hard drive and can be resurrected... with little to no effort. Scary, very scary.

So unless you're one to throw caution to the wind, and unless you're OK with your credit rating being tanked or having records of your private photos being made public, you'll want to do something about really, really cleaning that hard drive up before giving the computer away.

Being Selective

There are plenty of retail and free programs available to help you selectively target and destroy data from specific folders on your hard drive, all without affecting or removing programs or other key settings. A free program that handles this task well is appropriately called "Eraser 5.7" and it can be downloaded here. Single files, entire folders and all the "unused" space on your computer can be wiped clean to government & military standards (7 pass Department of Defense erasure, or 35-pass Gutmann uber-paranoid erasure). Eraser 5.7 works well on Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP Home, XP Professional, Windows 2003 Server and even the ancient DOS system. It'll even erase folders and unused disk space on a schedule that you set.

Mac users have secure erasure tools already built into their systems. To securely delete a folder or file, simply move it to the trash can and, from the Finder menu at the top left of your screen, select Finder then "Secure Empty Trash". Even the Disk Utility program built into Mac's OS X has a button "Erase Free Space" which does exactly that - it scans your hard drive for unused space and securely deletes it to military & government standards. Mac's OS X operating system has lots of neat built-in features like this.

Total Annihilation

Completely wiping a hard drive clean of all traces of any binary data is more thorough and secure than a selective erasure. Luckily, there are plenty of programs that can handle this task for you, some of which are free. A program called "WipeDrive 5" will allow you to easily nuke all the data on your hard drive according to Department of Defense standards. The program is currently $39.95 USD and is very effective. A free alternative is "Kill Disk" and will perform the same DoD-level erasure of your hard drive while allowing you to save your cash.

A full military-spec erasure is not quick. It could take up to several hours or even half a day to complete. It is effective, however, so if you want to protect yourself from years of expensive credit counseling due to identity theft, invest the tiny sliver in time. Besides, while the hard drive is being nuked, you can go to lunch or catch a movie.

Get Physical

Another brutally effective way to destroy data on your hard drive is to properly destroy the internal parts of the drive itself. There are several ways to do this, each of which requires physical methods of destruction that can be dangerous and may expose particles or chemicals hazardous to your health. If you're not able to maintain a safe environment, do not attempt these methods. Find a qualified company to assist.

Your data is stored on the spinning platters inside the drive. It's these platters that need targeting. Popular and effective methods for destroying the platters are: 1) industrial shredding, whereby the entire hard drive is fed into a powerful automobile-sized shredder that makes mincemeat of the drive; 2) drilling through the platters a few times with a titanium drill bit (easily found at Home Depot).

Of course, if the CIA, FSB and Mossad are all after your data, you may want to a) selectively nuke folders and files, b) write zeros at least seven times, c) physically disable the drive and d) get a safer, calmer life.

Summary

Protect your Social Security number and credit card e-bills from getting into the hands of 8-Ball Ernie down at the rehab center. Don't ruin the innocence of those kids at the community center by accidentally exposing them to the contents of your intentionally mislabeled though ineffectively deleted "Personal Budgets" folder. Make your donation of an old computer truly a win-win, good-karma situation for everyone involved. Free tools exist to perform even the most thorough cleaning of a hard drive. Use them.