Reformatting the hard drive

qnaqueen · #1 (**permalink**) 07-18-2006, 03:42 AM

A friend of mine bought a laptop computer during a company auction where they were disposing of their older hardware. She had then brought it home and only then found out that the computer was password protected and the system may still belong to the company she purchased it from? She she have her drive re-formatted and a new system installed so that she can use it? Or does that violate some sort of privacy or confidentiality issues? She does not work for the company she bought it from.

colenn · #2 (**permalink**) 11-07-2006, 12:11 AM

I think its OK. She reformated the disk so no data from previous owner stay on the disk. This is legally and ethically correct. After formatting she had to install a new OS anyway. Maybe she encountered some troubles with drivers etc. but there is internet to help

hr1s7o · #3 (**permalink**) 11-14-2006, 10:32 PM

Yes it is OK. I had Windows98SE installed on my computer when I bought it. I imediately formated my hard disc drive and installed windowsXP(I think it was just released). Privacy violation is simply humerous. You or in this case she bought the PC she decides what to do with it.

mini_0 · #4 (**permalink**) 04-20-2007, 09:56 PM

One should always reformat the drive before disposing it off like re selling it or giving it to anyone because a hard drive obviously contains the user specific data and that can contain personal and private secure information . Deleting files with only delete command is not a secure way as the files can still be recovered . The best option is use a system utility like the tune up utilities because what it does is that it overwrites all the space with 0's and 1's that are of no use to anyone .