{"id":6403,"date":"2017-01-28T17:10:34","date_gmt":"2017-01-28T17:10:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stevepedwards.today\/DebianAdmin\/?p=6403"},"modified":"2023-10-28T23:31:21","modified_gmt":"2023-10-28T22:31:21","slug":"personal-data-awareness-for-brokenstolen-pcs-the-data-people-give-away-use-shred","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevepedwards.today\/DebianAdmin\/personal-data-awareness-for-brokenstolen-pcs-the-data-people-give-away-use-shred\/","title":{"rendered":"Personal Data Awareness for Broken\/Stolen PCs – The Data People Give Away! Use Shred\/Other App"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I have been tinkering with PCs since my first Atari ST1040 in 1988, then a Win95 PC from\u00a01996 on, and have come into possession of many \"broken\" PCs and parts since, but it still amazes me that you can get old hard disks in boot sales etc. that have masses of personal data of the prior owners, perfectly intact - without even digging deeper or needing to use data recovery tools.<\/p>\n

Unbelievable...! So many people are still data unaware past 2010 - in this case.<\/p>\n

Intact data is mostly photos - family, friends, holidays etc. - with the occasional \"personal\" video, but often on Windows drives, there are also Contacts files - personal\/business email addresses etc. or even business documents.<\/p>\n

I even bought a boot sale camcorder once that had a tape inside with new baby videos on it...<\/p>\n

There is the potential for\u00a0a serious IT nerd\/criminal possibly recovering passwords or details to bank accounts or social media etc. which should be enough to make people think very carefully about selling or disposing of an old PC without being sure the data is fully deleted - but they often don't!<\/p>\n

Today I bought a WD 250GB SATA from a market stall, put it in my Linux box to check it's functionality with Disks (sudo gnome-disks if\u00a0you are<\/span>\u00a0ssh -X remotely<\/span><\/span>):<\/span><\/p>\n

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to check age, history, SMART tests and benchmark etc:<\/p>\n

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This is a perfectly good, bootable Windows 7 Home drive that mounts in Mint fine - complete with about 50GB of family photos and other user data!! Videos, MP3s, phone info, email addresses...<\/p>\n

What's on it?<\/p>\n

Amongst other things, a full $RecycleBin and User account data:<\/p>\n

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In one account there is 46GB of Photos!<\/p>\n

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There are mp3s (thanks for the 2 x Prince CDs to add to my collection! I'll delete the rest thanks..)<\/p>\n

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Because there is so much family data, with 50Gb of photos over a 2010-2013 period, I will contact the owner - a local driving instructor from pic info - that I found\u00a0the website and number for easily on google.<\/p>\n

It could be that they have not backed up the data before the PC was disposed of, so lost the lot, if they didn't bother thinking about the data given away - they may not be very tech savvy. I doubt that though, as they have decent phones and know how to get the pics off, so they SHOULD have backed it all up, but..<\/p>\n

If nothing else, it's to let them know about ensuring correct data destruction in future, and if they don't have the pics, I'm sure they will be very pleased.\u00a0It's a huge collection to lose - lots of their kids pics at key events etc.<\/p>\n

There are recoverable jpgs in the Bin:<\/p>\n

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It won't hurt to run a CAV virus scan on it either while it's in the Mint PC - could show the reason why the owners dumped it as a non-runner? It came up clean - not that one anti-virus program is definitive by ANY means...<\/p>\n

So, why not try and boot it in my HP tower...? Windows should not allow this if the hardware is markedly different from that it was originally installed on but...<\/p>\n

After about 10 mins of self-repair it declared itself non-recoverable - then promptly restarted up to the log in screen with 4 accounts to choose from!<\/p>\n

Now to reboot to the linux based NTPass CD to reset the sydadmin password as explained in the prior Post:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/stevepedwards.today\/DebianAdmin\/locked-out-of-win-nt-offline-reg-editor\/<\/p>\n