Deleting / cleaning Hard Drive History 1

[nobby111]

Hi All,

This is my first post so any help would be appreciated.

I am about to hand my laptop back to my company as I am moving on to a new job and wanted to know if there is anyway to erase all history of websites visited etc? I have spend a lot of time in the last few months looking on recruitment websites, and even more on Ebay, plus the occasion site the lads send out - red tube etc - as im sure we have all done now and again.

Anyway, obviously I can delete History and Cookies and Temp Internet Files but is that deep enough?

Or is there a way to erase all trace, without making it particularly obvious?

Thanks.

 

[BionicJohn]

CCleaner?

http://www.ccleaner.com/

Liverpool: Capital of Culture 2008
Anfield: Capital of Football since 1892
Iechyd da! John
Glannau Mersi, Lloegr.

 

[goombawaho]

Windows Washer from Webroot. Format before you hand it in?? Why would you care at that point if you wipe the thing clean?

If you did anything REALLY naughty, nothing short of putting some screws through the platters is going to absolutely guarantee that some data couldn't be recovered if the right people put their tools to the task.

 

[nobby111]

Cheers guys,

No nothing really naughty at all i just to clean the thing up so they dont know my history etc.

I care about formatting as i want to hand it back as it was delivered to me I guess.

Thanks again.

 

[wahnula]

nobbby111

Only YOU know exactly how that PC has been used. There are several "white space" cleaners, that overwrite the blank areas of your hard drive with ones and zeros, and make several passes, they usually cost about $30. Google "remove traces hard drive" to find several, I use an app called Clean Sweep, but all my PCs are personal.

If you've been bad, really bad, then download (free) DBAN from

http://dban.sourceforge.net

and boot to the CD, run a few passes and everything's gone. Or, buy a new HDD and install it and the OS for them, claim personal privacy reasons.

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[Sephyr]

You could always try another scrubber called CyberScrub. Goes for 49.95 but you can download the trial version to try it out.

http://www.cyberscrub.com/

 

[Sympology]

Does you company use a proxy server? If so all your efforts are a waste of time

Only the truly stupid believe they know everything.
Stu.. 2004

 

[LesNicholls]

If your company uses a Firewall it is possible that your activity has been logged on that so unless you have access to it there isn't much you can do.
If they havn't then it is easy to delete your web history by going to tools\Internet options\Settings\View files and then edit and select all and delete. You can then step up one to the temp folder and delte that and it is porbably worth deleting the history too.

 

[acewarlock]

If they wanted to know what you have been doing, they would know it already.




This is a Signature and not part of the answer, it appears on every reply.

This is an Analogy so don't take it personally as some have.

Why change the engine if all you need is to change the spark plugs.

 

[wahnula]

just to clean the thing up so they dont know my history etc

...then don't forget to delete your AutoComplete files too.

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[ceh4702]

Add another user to the laptop and make it administrator, then go back and delete everything in My Documents for the old user. Then delete the old user. Look under the media player and make sure you dont have any links to that. In fact use media player to do a search of the entire hard drive to look for all music, and video and delete everything it finds. Look for IM software and delete everthing that can find. Delete all bookmarks, temporary internet files etc. I made it a habit a while back to store everything in My Documents I wanted or needed for business. In subfolders as necessary. Makes it easier to back up and easier to get rid of.

Another idea is to look in the add programs section of the control panel and remove programs you installed whatever they may have been whether games or add on program you really did not need.

Might try installing spybot search and destroy and an anti-adware programs and delete all of the cookies and spyware they find. Spyware search and destroy is a program good at finding and deleting downloaders and trojans. These are pesky programs that often download junk you done want or need including trojans and more downloaders and spyware programs. A lot of programs like Mcaffee and Norton just do not do a good job in this area. Free AVG is also a good free Virus Scanner.

If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.