Selling old PC could be harmful

Posted by Edward

If you have old PC and you want to buy a new one and you also want to sell old one then you should know that if you sell your old PC it means your are selling your everything. Because most hackers try to buy used computers, mostly hard drives because it contains your personal information. It is known that sensitive data is present on PC in greater amount even if it is empty. Mostly all people sell their old PC without properly deleting sensitive data present on it. You may know you can get your deleted data back using recovery software.
So if you delete all of your information and files on your old PC or hard drive and then sell it usually person who buys this from you try to recover your deleted files. Best way to get rid of your old PC is that you should throw it in a river or break it into small pieces. Second way is that there are some software that can help you to delete your files and data completely. Deleting files using those software will prevent deleted data to be recovered. (Some programs are given at bottom)

Lets have a look on how deleted files could be recovered:

When you delete any file from your computer it will not delete the particular file but it will delete only its name from index directory list.

Working of Hard Drive:

Hard drive works with an index of the each and every file present on your computer (hard drive). When you open a file hard drive uses index to find the location of file and then open it, in the same way when you delete a file it is only removed from that index directory and asks your PC that space is available for new files to be stored in place of that file. As file is deleted from index directory so it is not appearing to you but it is present somewhere in hard drive and you can get it back using some recovery software.

Most pictures and videos are recovered in this way and then these are uploaded to web. Many people lost their accounts too due to this reason.
If you really want to sell you old PC try to use some software to delete files properly.
Eraser, Hardwipe, Disk Whipe and Secure Eraser are some freeware software to delete files properly and completely from your computer.

Please try to share this page with your friends if you want their information to be save.

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