Secure Hard Drive Erase – Why You Need It!
A computer hard drive can contain a huge amount of personal and /or confidential business information, this data must be deleted securely by a secure hard drive erase before a hard drive is disposed of.
Even if the hard drive is faulty or broken it is still possible to retrieve data, so it is essential that you perform a secure hard drive erase!
Kessler International, a computer forensics company from New York, conducted a study of used hard drives available on eBay. Almost half of the hundred drives they sampled, purchased in random bulk lots, contained data that was easily recovered. A shocking amount of them required no more recovery effort than plugging them in and powering up.
They found personal photos, financial records, emails, personal and corporate correspondence, corporate secrets, and more. Even the hard drives from the ill-fated space shuttle Columbia contained retrievable data!
Who Needs To Perform A Secure Hard Drive Erase?
The simple answer is everyone, yes this means you too!
Simply erasing all the data and formatting the hard drive is not secure enough. You can spend hours going through your hard drive deleting data, but this basically only removes the shortcuts or links to the files making them invisible to users. Deleted data still remains on the hard drive, and a quick search on Google will reveal a wide variety of data recovery programs that allow anyone to recover that data.
Formatting a hard drive is a bit more secure, however, this also does not erase the data on the disk, only the address tables. It makes it much more difficult to recover the files, but with free software found on the Internet, it would be easy to recover most if not all of the data that was on the hard drive before the reformat.
For those who accidentally format a hard disk being able to recover most or all the data that is a good thing. However, if you’re preparing a system for disposal, this obviously makes you more vulnerable to identity theft.
We at Toledo Computer Repair have the necessary tools and software to virtually eliminate the retrieval of your sensitive data, and at an affordable cost too! Depending on the size of the hard drive, and how much data is on the hard drive, a secure hard drive erase will only cost around $35.00. A small price to pay for piece of mind, and restful nights.
So before you attack that hard drive with a hammer, drill or thermonuclear device, give us a call to setup an appointment to make sure that your hard drive is truly securely erased.
Disclaimer: Please note that we are not responsible for data loss due to and including, but not limited to viruses, malware, spyware, hardware failure, data corruption, etc.