Hi.

I am about to retire from my company . I have a Windows driven laptop with many/various files in "My Documents".
I also have a Microsoft Exchange e mail address (company issued) which I will retain for a while (but not actively use!).
My e mails are seen across my various devices (2 IPhones plus IPad and a MacBook Pro).
Therefore , the way I see it is that if I retain my work e mail address and DO Use it on any of my devices ,e mails will still be seen on this laptop. Am I right?
Now, I am giving my laptop to another colleague but would ideally like to address the above PLUS "wipe " any deleted files PERMANENTLY so that they cannot ne recovered. However, I would prefer to leave him an operational "Windows ".
Any recommendations or advice please?

 

If you have a windows install disk, start an install, then partition and format the drive.

 

I do not have the Windows disk. It is at my company headquarters in Aberdeen. I am out in Malaysia!

 

If you're after something free and easy to use try this:

https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner

This has an option to wipe free space and will clean all deleted files from the hard drive.

There's also this one if you're willing to pay for it.

http://www.east-tec.com/eraser/

Probably one of the best tools on the market.

 

Does it not have a partition on the hard drive enabling you to format it back to out of the box option.

What laptop is it.

You can wipe your emails and delete the exchange account off the machine, or another option is to delete the user account and the files along with it.

 

Depends how "secure" you want to go. I'd go with Ccleaner, delete everything you need to delete on the laptop as you would normally, then run the multiple passes over the free space, it'll take some time, but will make near impossible to recover.

 

Re read

In outlook remove the exchange account - this will remove the .ost file
(https://support.office.com/en-us/art...6-8aa8a072f60f)

then use eraser - http://eraser.heidi.ie/ - to delete all empty space which will make the deleted files (including the .ost) for the exchange emails unrecoverable.

 

Make your friend go and buy a copy of windows, the put the disk in start the installer and nuke the partition.

 

 

Me personally, I would probably DBAN my machine before passing it on. This however will wipe the Windows install. Therefore a compromise needs to be made. Link below FYI:

http://www.dban.org/

 

To make your old data unrecoverable, you need to do more than just delete it and clear out your 'bin'. As suggested above dban can help with this as can other low level formatting tools.

If your laptop runs a solid state drive, I would replace the drive, it is not possible to wipe these with the same level of assurance that can be given to a rotational drive.

 

Agreed, SSDs don't work in the same way as standard drives, using shredding apps can damage the drive as it's mean to keep a strict balance of access/write of each "block". You can cause a voltage spike to clear one down, but personally I'd be swapping it out.