I got fired - who can access my hard drive?

[Vertigo2005]

I know this is a strange question, but any help you could provide would be appreciated.

I was fired from my job last Friday. I did not have the opportunity to remove any potentially personal or sensitive data from my desk PC, and there is one particular file on my hard drive that would be (at the very least) somewhat embarassing if discovered. I realize the stupidity of having personal files archived on your office machine, so please - don't scold me after the fact.

My issue is this: since our company requires an individual login and password to access the system (i.e. to login to Windows), is there a possibility that whoever inherits my machine will also have access to my C: drive and everything that was stored there, even with a new Windows login? I have no idea if the company has or will reconfigure the machine to clean out all the previous data, and I'm not concerned about anything that was located on the network server - I'm only worried about the hard drive.

I hope this made sense. Any comments on this would be much appreciated.

 

[gizmo1973]

Short answer is yes
I inherited my works machine and by accessing the profiles I deleted all the old data on C drive that I didn't want.
Anyone with the right experience can also do this so instead of deleting they could read it.
I won't say what you already know about not doing this!

Regards, Phil.

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[paparazi]

Well it's there and can be accessed by the person who has administrator rights.
It's like anything, if they go looking or have a reason to look, it will be found.
If they have no reason to be looking and depending on where you located this file and the file name, it's likely it will be overlooked.
Did you know anyone there you could trust to delete this file for you.
Martin

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[Vertigo2005]

Good point - no, they don't really have a reason to look, although my employer does have a reputation for being extremely "Big-Brother-ish". I definitely don't think a network admin-type person would go looking, I think it would be more likely that the person who inherited the machine might just stumble across it. Gizmo made a good point - the new user will have a new profile, therefore wouldn't that mean that they'd have to dig up MY profile in order to access my Windows settings and documents?

The good news is that the embarassing file in question is a Word document that is saved under an extremely boring title - "Autorecovery save of..." since MS Word shut down while I was saving it and I never bothered to rename it.
Not something that most people would bother to anything about except delete it.

I could ask a colleague to access my PC and try to locate it, but that might cause more harm than good. Plus, would they need my windows login and password or could she use her own?

 

[gizmo1973]

Personally I always go on the hunt for old profiles on a second hand machine just to delete them and to use the space that they were using.
Just hope whoever gets your old machine is not like me.

Regards, Phil.

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[wolluf]

You didn't encrypt your My Documents folder by any chance?

 

[Vertigo2005]

No, I unfortunately didn't. Which is why I'm assuming that whoever my successor is will have full access to everything that was stored there - I really can't figure out if having a new windows login and password will make a difference.

 

[mainegeek]

Ask a (close) colleague to search for it with the assistance of your successor(who doesn't know you) and have them delete it. Shouldn't be a big deal to do.

 

[oisnds]

On the other hand you may not have a problem. A great number of businesses reformat or reimage PCs before giving them to a new user. Cleans up viruses and such.

 

[sulumnad]

They could probably use their own, it depends on the computer policies, obviously if you could save a file just about anywhere in your computer so can someone else find it and retrieve it.

There's a good chance it will be reimaged or it will just sit there and be lost. Its better on the PC, than on the network. You could probably have someone log in as themselves, do a Find on the *.doc s in that PC and delete it. Unless there are station restrictions for usercodes, but thats seldom most places like to be able to use a PC that's not being used.

Some IT Guy - Marc