Here is a general bit of advice as obvious to me that it is just plain stupidity whenever I see it: whenever you give away, sell, recycle a computer, make sure you WIPE THE HARDDRIVE!
Here I sit ripping parts off yet another junked computer and, out of curiousity, I wired it up to see what was working. Old computer was from a local lawyer. Left absolutely everything on the drive. All client info, fees, offenses, ss numbers, you name it. Small town and I KNOW half of these people. My Dr. had a real estate deal, my dentist, some colleagues. Criminal offenses, divorces. What a dumbass. I see this so often that it is just scary.
These same people are usually anal about shredding documents. This idiot didn't even empty the trash (which doesn't delete info anyway). Don't know how to do a secure wipe of a drive? Do it the manual way and take a hammer to the HD!
