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Taking an old laptop to repairs!
O-J
Posts: 18,856 Forum Member
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The laptop had some porn on it. 
I haven't used it in a year or so, but it was packed full of hot women all over the place, my desktop was like this,
http://www.greymattermarketing.com/administration/media/images/desktop%20full.jpg
The laptop had screen issues, keeps flickering and changing colours, I wanted to sell it for parts on ebay, so I deleted everything and reinstalled windows from scratch, but forgot selling it when i brought a new one soon after,
Could the PC geeks snoop through the porn pics after it has been deleted?
I haven't used it in a year or so, but it was packed full of hot women all over the place, my desktop was like this,
http://www.greymattermarketing.com/administration/media/images/desktop%20full.jpg
The laptop had screen issues, keeps flickering and changing colours, I wanted to sell it for parts on ebay, so I deleted everything and reinstalled windows from scratch, but forgot selling it when i brought a new one soon after,
Could the PC geeks snoop through the porn pics after it has been deleted?
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She passed it to me because it was more of my vintage, and I did a couple of tweaks I used to know on Windows to clear it out and speed it up. it worked a bit. Then I went through the hard drive looking for stuff to delete, at his request, as there was almost no space left on it...
That's when I came across all the letters drafted on Word on it by his mum, who turned out to be a bit of a swinger! And she did enjoy her bestiality porn too...
The poor guy left somewhat traumatised...
Worst thing on that desktop that would bother a tech geek would be the Norton, though.
I think you should be more embarrassed about the Justin Bieber tracks, rather than the porn.
Its not my desktop, I Googled the pic to show an example.
Possibly, but they'd need specialist data recovery software and hardware to extract that sort of info and even then, the chances of retrieving something can vary between excellent to "fat chance". To add to all this, they are not allowed to perform such an operation without your express permission - it might be a serious breach of the Data Protection Act if they don't.
Yes deleting them does not remove them from windows it just breaks to the link to the file table technically they are still on the disk. You can download programs off the internet which scan the disk and will recover the files.
Their is not way to delete them off the disc but you can over write them. You can download tools called which will over write the sectors of the disks until it is not longer possible to recover the original file. If you are selling on any hard drive use this tool to wipe it clean typically to remove any personal details.
Having said all this I would not worry too much i doubt many people are going to be that interesting in trying to recover your all files. Most people would not even think it was possible.
One one final bit of advice don't store or keep so much stuff on your desktop as in the icons and songs. It can really slow down the performance of the machine. Every time it has to refresh or redraw the desktop when you move the windows around it has to do all those icons. For most machines / graphics cards it maybe not be a problem you wont notice it but it is still not a good idea and one of my pet hates.
Stick them in your documents folder that is where they below just keep program icons on your desktop !!!
People buy laptops for spare parts.
Yeah, I know.
Took over six hours to back everything up on my external hard drive before I could reboot the bloody thing (this was windows Vista).
I had so much stuff on the internal hard drive it was half an hour before I could use the thing.
The OP should have put all his porn on an external storage device first.
I couldn't look at that for more than a few seconds
I'm so anal - I use Fences
Tons of them on eBay.
Makes sound economic sense if you're a bit handy or can follow a Chooby tutorial.
I've never really thought of most laptop spare parts very useful, unless your have the same make and model, as so many of them are customized. Still, some people would sell their grandmother on eBay if they could. Besides, it shouldn't be too hard to find a complete second hand laptop for about £50-75.
You could wipe it via a USB and a Phone!!!
What type of phone do you have?
You can get software that over-writes your HDD as part of the formatting process.
Unless you've got bank details or state-secrets on it, however, I doubt anybody would really care.
If you're that worried about it, remove the HDD, bung it in a cheap case and use it as an external HDD and then flog the laptop without it.
Yeah, he could do all that. But we both know, someone with a 'brain' could find anything they wanted on his shit!
I dunno, the OP is silly, regardless!
What a desktop though. Gah. Is your real world organised like that? The desktop is a metaphor for day-to-day working - what you need easy access to can go on there but when it's done with & no longer needed, tidy it away somewhere to leave a clear space for the next task.
I don't think they would be bothered by hot women though
BIB - No........Whatever you do, it'll ALWAYS be there.
If you have done a full format of the drive rather than a quick format that only wipes the index files then the data is pretty much gone. If you overwrite the drive with random data then format again it is pretty much impossible to get back what was originally on the drive.
So no, the data will not always be there.
Cute opinion!
Not sure about that.
I don't care how big your brain is, you're not going to be getting any data off the HDDs I've taken out of laptops and put to use as external HDDs any time soon.
So, you don't think, given any laptop or PC, it couldn't be drained?
Of course the HDDs, taken away. Most of the data there etc.... But, in this day and age, you need to look up! Data is cloudy!
No matter where, using the internet. Your shit is found. ;-)
I'm absolutely certain that if I gave you a laptop without a HDD in it, you'd be unable to get any of my personal information from it.
I'm equally sure that you won't be able to gain access to the HDDs I currently have on the shelf beside me to get data off those either.
Beyond that, I'm not sure how stuff about clouds and the internet applies to the subject of whether or not data can be extracted from a HDD.
I mean, if you're suggesting that everybody's "stuff" is out there, in clouds and on the internet, what's it actually matter whether or not the data on your HDD can be retrieved or not?
You seem to be fixating on what's theoretically possible in a worst-case scenario rather than what's actually likely to happen in the real world.
I've actually bought two used laptops in the last 2 weeks.
Guess how many of them I scanned the hard-drives of to try and recover the personal information of the previous owners?
Correct. Neither.