Beware Before You Dispose of Your Hard Drive
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TAMPA, Fla., June 19  /PRNewswire/ -- Computers may have sensitive data that identity thieves would love to get their hands on. Magnets, degaussers, and other x-ray or magnetic techniques do not work, even the large bulk eraser magnets are not effective.
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It ain't no good if it ain't got good data Call me old-fashioned, but data is still pretty important. In most systems, if you feed bad data in you get bad data out (Garbage In, Garbage Out - GIGO).â¦
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Decide to do something about portable data storage now rather than later. Let your auditors and risk management staff know that 4GB dip sticks are here, and 1.6TB gel disks are around the corner.
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A false positive in company's antivirus products leads to quarantine or deletion of some Windows users' copies of explorer.exe.
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By Jim Puzzanghera  WASHINGTON  --  As new high-definition televisions fly off store shelves, millions of old sets soon could be flying into the trash.
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A new study that estimates how much digital information is zipping around (hint: a lot) finds that for the first time, there's not enough storage space to hold it all. Good thing we delete some stuff.
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Should you buy this Seagate drive? Certainly! The odds are excellent that Windows will never again tell you that you're running low on hard disk space, and that alone might be worth the price of admission.
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By Mike Keller, The Sun Herald, Biloxi, Miss.  Jun. 2--Don't look at getting rid of that old computer as the chance to make a profit, or even to garner much more cash than it will take in time and energy to pawn it off.
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Legal wrangling over competing hard drive technologies continues.
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Undetected by most AV apps Security mavens have uncovered a new class of attacks that attach malware to a the bowels of a hard drive, making it extremely hard to detect and even harder to remove.â¦
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Digital photocopiers use hard drives to store data. If not properly secured, they can be vulnerable to data thieves. By the Associated Press.
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Google's Desktop Search application indexes a PC hard drive when it's not being used
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Occasionally a computer will become so significantly compromised with viruses, trojans, backdoors, hacked, spyware or malware that it becomes irrecoverable with normal means. Occasionally said computer will belong to a client, family member, friend or otherwise very important person who needs said computer back with data. In most business envrionments user data should be on the server and the following process is not typically appropriate. This process is Windows specific, and will help you deal with Windows less than graceful failures when taken over by viruses, trojans, spyware or has been hacked.    If you do not have data to recover, or an substantial operational need to keep that exact install, then just wipe the drive and reinstall the Operating System. There are times however when you really need to recover a system and format c:\\ is not an option. This process is not intended to be all inclusive, but to give you a starting point so that you can start doing other needed system repairs and or recover files safely. Fundamentally a recovered system that has been owned can be recovered, but never again should be considered known or trusted. It is always better to wipe and reinstall, but it is not always an option.
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Also: UN warning on e-waste 'mountain.' Read these stories and more from around the Web on News.com Extra.
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You know it's bound to happen: One of the CDs you've burned is going to stop working &#151; be it from scratches, aging, poor manufacturing or the fact that it was made with old software.
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Of all the comments on the hard drive, and there have been hundreds, this one explains it best. I'm sorry to hear about your experience at the Apple Store. I was a "genius" for a year and can assure you that the policy regarding HDs was frustrating to us as well. In warranty it wasn't so hard to justify, but out of warranty customers often had a problem with it. My recommendation to them (and to you) is the same. AASPs often do not have the same contractual obligations with HD manufacturers that Apple does, so they may very well let you keep it. If you still wanted to have it done through an Apple store, take a magnet to it before you hand it over. The techs have better things to do than trawl through your personal data (there are exceptions, of course), but if it sets your mind at ease- go for it. Honestly, I would do this in your position because I have read of people getting reman drives with other people's data still on them. But that would have nothing to do with Apple and everything to do with the companies contracted to remanufacture the HDs.Not much more to say after that. I will probably write a summary tomorrow.
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LOWELL -- Someone pitches a laptop computer, and what happens to the plastic casing? Chances are it ends up in a landfill, adding to the toxic swill.