Tonya

HP is going to repair my computer. They want me to send the tower to them. What I want to know is, can they get any information about me off of the tower? Should I do anything to "clean up" before I send it in? I am STILL an amateur, I don't know where my personal information is stored. Tonya

damnyank

Hey Tonya - good to hear from ya again.

Also glad you are finally (hopefully) going to get that system sorted out. I sure hope HP gets it right his time as I just went back and reread the old posts and they sure messed you about before.

I'm not smart enuf to tell U what all to remove, but I am sure someone will help ya out!

Let us know how things work out with HP - I am interested because I also have an HP with the OEM XP Home installation.

elderec

I've never had to send a pc back... never bought a pc from a manufacturer though either, but I would suggest just formatting the drive. That is if you don't need anything on it.

yoyo

You will very likely need the preinstalled OS and applications to preserve any warranty options.
From amateur to amateur I would suggest to backup all personal things to CD or floppy and then try to run this I think it was called destructive restore once again.

elderec

See I would think the warranty applies to the hardware, not the software, but I could be wrong.

eNuffSaid

Tonya,

I worked for a company that had a contract with a university to supply all new students with a Laptop. Obviously we got many back for maintainace. Ofcoarse we would look around on their laptop for "fun stuff"... and fun stuff we found. Plenty of porn, mp3z, movies, etc. etc (strangly enough, hardly ever did we find school work).

We did not go through personal stuff, but I guess it depends on the guy fixing your computer whether he is nosey or not. Also remember, that the repair store may well decide a new install is the solution to your problem. They may not be too concerned about your data, or may offer you a "backup" for additional costs.

Always keep your personal data PRIVATE and SAFE, preferably NOT on your PC. Technically speaking NOTHING is safe on your computer.

Kind regards,
Willem Moolenaar

laptop

Tonya, I had my HP custom ordered PC conk on me
a little over a month ago. I saved all my stuff just prior
to it conking on a CD. I talked to some people who said
what ever you do to it to remove data there are many
places that data can be retreived from.

All your deleted stuff like emails, word docs, etc.

My PC was only 2.5 years old, I removed the
hard drive from it, destroyed it (used a sledge hammer)
then bought a laptop.

Tonya

In other words, redo everything I did a couple weeks ago, or trust that HP has highly moral, honest technicians that have absolutely no curiosity whatever. Oh, Boy!! It's a good thing that I don't have anything TOO personal on the darn thing. I don't think that my goal as a computer genius is going to work out!!

yoyo

The most save is the sledgehammer-method (dynamite even saver), but if you don't have too personal things on it try to clear as much as possible (documents, history, restorepoints, don't forget to empty recyclebin..).Perhaps put some "fun-stuff" on it to keep them busy?

RobbieSan

Yep, if you have any data that's needs to be saved or is 'sensitive' back it all up to CD's first.. then, delete all info you do not want seen (make sure it's removed from teh Recycle Bin as well) you can use a program like Norton wipeinfo to overwrite free space.. you can also boot into BIOS and do a low level format to completely erase everything off the drive.. I guess all of this depends on how your machine is running..

Tonya

Luckily, because I just did the destructive recovery a couple of weeks ago, I don't have a whole lot of personal stuff to get rid of. And I have very few files on my computer right now because it keeps screwing up. So this shouldn't be very hard to do. This is a great forum, I'm glad I bumped into it. Thanks for all your advise, help and just plain hand holding!

damnyank

Hey Tonya - when ya get your puter back and running again - be sure to come on back and let us know what kind of support you actually got from HP - ie how long they had it, if they expedited shipment back to you, etc. and oh yea - if they devulge the real problem with it!

Thankx for the nice comments on the forum.

RobbieSan

you're welcome Tonya.. I have asked a bunch of questions and the people here almost always have answers or at least can point you in the right direction.. good luck on your repair..