Returning Latop to a bigbox store - Scrub Drive or what?? how do I remove data?

[tankman1989]

I have a Toshiba I paid $600 for and I'll tell you, this thing is a total piece of CRAP!!!! This is the second Toshiba, the last was 5-6 years ago and I had hoped hey had gotten better. Well, NOPE, Still a hunk of junk. EXTREMELY slow, and freezes up any time I open a browser, at least for a few mins. It seems like it came with some spyware to trojan already on it to slow it down.

On top of all of this, the DC power cord, that has the brick in the middle, well that brick got up to 230 degrees the other day and I have verified t at 214, 222, 206, 197 and all the way down into the 150's where it normally stays. This is too hot for any consumer electronic device and I will not have it in my house.

SO, Now I have to take it back to HHGregg and tell them this is a real POS and it could have burnt own my house.

I want to TOTALLY clear all the data off this hard drive before returning it to the store. The thing is, I'm not sure they will take it if I wipe the drive and there are no recover cd's (I was supposed to make them) but I have a TechNet subscription so I was going to upgrade the OS anyway.

So, how should I clear out my personal data? Do I ned to wipe the entire HD and then re-install from a technet CD? What would you suggest?

 

[Majestic]

I have a Toshiba I paid $600 for and I'll tell you, this thing is a total piece of CRAP!!!! This is the second Toshiba, the last was 5-6 years ago and I had hoped hey had gotten better. Well, NOPE, Still a hunk of junk. EXTREMELY slow, and freezes up any time I open a browser, at least for a few mins. It seems like it came with some spyware to trojan already on it to slow it down.

On top of all of this, the DC power cord, that has the brick in the middle, well that brick got up to 230 degrees the other day and I have verified t at 214, 222, 206, 197 and all the way down into the 150's where it normally stays. This is too hot for any consumer electronic device and I will not have it in my house.

SO, Now I have to take it back to HHGregg and tell them this is a real POS and it could have burnt own my house.

I want to TOTALLY clear all the data off this hard drive before returning it to the store. The thing is, I'm not sure they will take it if I wipe the drive and there are no recover cd's (I was supposed to make them) but I have a TechNet subscription so I was going to upgrade the OS anyway.

So, how should I clear out my personal data? Do I ned to wipe the entire HD and then re-install from a technet CD? What would you suggest?

Why not just use the factory restore that most of these laptops have at boot up? That should take no more than 10 minutes.

Majestic

 

[iisjman07]

Surely it has a coa, so can you not dban the thing and reinstall with a dvd from your collection?

EDIT: You could do a factory restore like Majestic said, but I don't think I've seen one that will securely wipe a drive; the ones I've seen usually just do a quick format which isn't hardly secure enough for anything remotely important

 

[atlanticjim]

Use the factory restore as suggested and then.. ..

Use ccleaner's "wipe empty space on hard drive" utility to get rid of personal data.

tada!

 

[NeutronTech]

I wouldn't bother. I'd securely erase the drive and just return it. If they ask questions, just tell them you wiped the drive to get rid of your personal info.

 

[dbdawn]

I wouldn't bother. I'd securely erase the drive and just return it. If they ask questions, just tell them you wiped the drive to get rid of your personal info.

+1 Just run dban or similar.

 

[arrow_runner]

Make a new user/admin profile, delete the old ones (with files), and run ccleaner wipe or MS sdelete utility. Easy Peasy.

 

[NeutronTech]

Make a new user/admin profile, delete the old ones (with files), and run ccleaner wipe or MS sdelete utility. Easy Peasy.

My way is easier. Besides, they are going to wipe it again anyways. Why spend anymore time on it than you have to?

 

[meanderer]

is it that big deal? I think deleting the file then run some tools that wipes free space is plenty.

 

[arrow_runner]

My way is easier. Besides, they are going to wipe it again anyways. Why spend anymore time on it than you have to?

It depends on how hhgreg handles the return. If they just accept the laptop in it's box and his story without turning it on, then sure, but I would feel a little irked if a customer of mine brought back a laptop after a short period of time saying that it had problems so they wiped the hard drive and gave it to me blank. (I wouldn't be able to verify the problems OR create the restore disks.) They could even say/suggest that he caused the problems and see wiping the hard drive as a sign of his misuse of the laptop. I'm not hhgreg though and I don't know what their return policy is.

 

[tankman1989]

It depends on how hhgreg handles the return. If they just accept the laptop in it's box and his story without turning it on, then sure, but I would feel a little irked if a customer of mine brought back a laptop after a short period of time saying that it had problems so they wiped the hard drive and gave it to me blank. (I wouldn't be able to verify the problems OR create the restore disks.) They could even say/suggest that he caused the problems and see wiping the hard drive as a sign of his misuse of the laptop. I'm not hhgreg though and I don't know what their return policy is.

I like the way you think. Anywhich way they can screw a customer, it seems that they will (Not just HHgregg but most big box stores anymore. Iremember when working at HD some "city" lady brought back her snow blower($799 model) and wanted her money back. Why? She had no room to store it. You know whayt they did instead of try to cause a scene, gave it + 10% back~

 

[arrow_runner]

I like the way you think.

Me too.

 

[Hercomputers]

I like the way you think. Anywhich way they can screw a customer, it seems that they will (Not just HHgregg but most big box stores anymore. Iremember when working at HD some "city" lady brought back her snow blower($799 model) and wanted her money back. Why? She had no room to store it. You know whayt they did instead of try to cause a scene, gave it + 10% back~

Did you call them first to out what their policy is? That really should be the first thing you should do. If you don't want anything to remain on the drive, just erase the drive - not a hard decision to make here--