Clearing the unallocated disk space

[jd1008]

On 11/16/2014 09:58 PM, Tim wrote:
> On Sun, 2014-11-16 at 22:17 -0600, g wrote:
>> hard disk drive manufactures _are_not_ NSA. you _are_not_ NSA.
>>   
>> they do not connect hdd's to computers and try to read drives to
>> see what is on them. to do so is a waist of their time.
> There have been cases of people getting refurbished drives which did
> have the previous owners data on them.
>
> There's all sorts of data on a drive that you want to keep private,
> without even thinking of nefarious reasons.  Personal mail, addresses,
> family photos, insecurely cached data pertaining to banking, or other
> data that can lead to identity theft.
>
> If the drive was cheap enough, and you've had enough life out of it
> before it went west, it's worth considering just wrecking it.  But if it
> were fairly new, or horribly expensive, then I would consider wiping (or
> filling it with junk files) and returning it.
>
Well, seeing how disk drive prices are coming down to earth,
destruction seems to be a much more viable alternative.