{"id":3189,"date":"2016-06-20T09:31:11","date_gmt":"2016-06-20T09:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stellarinfo.com\/blog\/?p=3189"},"modified":"2022-01-07T10:36:33","modified_gmt":"2022-01-07T10:36:33","slug":"be-sure-your-hard-drive-having-no-data-before-selling-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stellarinfo.com\/blog\/be-sure-your-hard-drive-having-no-data-before-selling-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Selling your hard drive? Be aware your data may be recoverable"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you are going to sell your hard-drive, then you should permanently wipe out all the data from it. When you delete files from your computer, it still presents on your system’s hard disk and any data recovery software<\/a><\/strong> can easily recover it.<\/p>

Deleting, Formatting, and reformatting are not enough:<\/strong><\/p>

Many people assume that pressing a delete button or ‘Shift+DEL<\/strong>’ will delete their data permanently but it’s not true. It is still present in your system’s hard disk. Even formatting is not the best option to delete the data but, better than a deleting process. Similarly, reformatting is better than formatting. In formatting process, the address table (contains data location in hard-drive) is formatted but data still presents on the hard disk. The reformatting process erases the address table of the data. In all the cases; a data recovery expert or a software can recover your data very easily. So, if you are thinking to sell your system or hard disk to any other organization or for charity then it can make you more vulnerable to data theft.<\/p>

Why disk erasing?<\/strong><\/p>

Disk erasing is the most secure way to erase the data from hard disk permanently.<\/p>

Disk erasing process overwrites the entire hard-drive with the binary data (0 or 1). This process typically overwrites MBR (Master Boot Record) partition table and sectors of the hard-drive. MBR is a small program that executes at the time of system booting. It presents in the first sector of the hard disk.<\/p>

Disk erasing process:<\/strong><\/p>

As data erasing process works on an overwriting principle which removes the data permanently from hard disk. This is the best way to erase data unlike the physical destruction of the hard disk which makes it unusable.<\/p>

Now, read the following case studies:<\/strong><\/p>

Case Study by UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office<\/a> (ICO):<\/strong><\/p>

They purchased 200 hard drives from auction sites and fairs. Out of 200 hard disks, 11% has personal information like bank details, emails, personal photos and much more.<\/p>

The information commissioner Christopher Graham said:<\/p>

“We live in a world where personal and company information is a highly valuable commodity, it is important that people do everything they can to stop their details from falling into the wrong hands.<\/em>”<\/p>

Case study by Kessler International<\/a>:<\/strong><\/p>

Kessler International conducted a study over 6 months. In this study, they buy the hard-drive from range 40GB to 300GB from USA and Canada. The total hard-drive was 100 and 40 hard-drive have data. The CEO of Kessler International said:<\/p>

“With size of the sample, I guess we were surprised with the percentage of disks that we found data on. We expected most of the drives to be wiped — to find one or two disks with data. But 40 drives out of 100 is a lot.<\/em>”<\/p>

Kessler’s engineers found very important data like documents, photographs, E-mails and DNS server information because data was not overwritten. With this, lots of personal stuff by which anybody can blackmail them.<\/p>

Kessler International divided this data into percentages and here it is:<\/p>