Ways to speed up your computer....

[Joe]

I understand your fears, Col. Yes, you can trust me but not anybody I may pass on to, not that I will do. There's also a chance it could be stolen.

The only way I can think of to utterly wipe data is to over-write it with something else or physically destroy the drive. I don't even need 80GB. Providing I can fit the OS and programs on it anything else can go on memory cards or CDs.

- Joe

[Radio Fixer]

I believe there is no way of getting the data back if the drive is formated even from just a W98 boot disk. My old BIOS used to have a low level formatter but I'm not sure that this one has. If you hit the drive with a large hammer that should be pretty secure. If you have never taken one apart then thats an interesting option. Just see how small it all is and marvel that it can actually work reliably. Then bite a lump out of the platter with a strong pair of cutters to make it ultra secure. Pretty sure I have HDDs around of that size or bigger if Joe wants one.

   

Well there had to be somone on a cordless mouse! Batteries are cheap and I use rechargeable in mine (hybrids from Maplin that hold charge fo months on standby). Cable keyboards are fine but a cordless mouse really comes into its own if doing drwg work, cad or photo - retouching. Much better precision can be obtained without the drag of the cable. For any prolonged activity they are less tiring.

I also use a Wacom Tablet and have done so for many years. Another 'once had and got used to' that I wouldnt be without. Pen input is very natural for quick moving about, editing etc. Tip is presure sensitive so it can be used in photo work. The technology is astounding ... have a look at the description on this link.

http://www.tablet4u.co.uk/techinfo.html

This is the Wacom Tablet in action using the handwriting application. It does make errors but then again my scribble is pretty bad. Correction or editing is pretty slick either in the app or in Word.

Here’s a lit witloutediting. So not and and would be better if9 trained it more by longer useage.


Nice sunshine here Gary

[Keithstv]

If you down load Western Digitals DataLifeguard from their website it has the ability to low level format a hard drive. This is one of the programmes I use at work when investigating hard drive faults and have found it to work with most manufacturers drives.

It also has test options for checking if the drive is OK.

Keith

[Nick]

I believe there is no way of getting the data back if the drive is formatted even from just a W98 boot disk.

Umm... No. This is simply not the case - its easy to trawl the free space on a hard drive and to reconstruct a very good part of the data - there are many many tools (some free) to do this, even if you think you have over-written the data.

I have to have drives destroyed beyond forensic recovery as a small part of my job - the drives contain trading information from major merchant banks and client information.

I used to shoot the drives with a 12bore, but that is actually not a very good way of rendering them unreadable (see attached photo of one I prepared earlier). HDs are actually surprisingly tough...

I then spent time with a forensic data recovery laboratory that does "stuff" for the security services & police - a real eye-opener. Given enough money, a clean room, an electron microscope etc., they can recover data from almost anything - phones & disks that have been shredded. Disks that have been supposedly "security wiped". The security industry is full of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt), and many products are pure snake-oil, but these guys were very very good indeed.

Nowadays I get all our drives shredded by the same people the police use - turns the hd into kitty-litter!

[pwdrive]

I have opened old hard drives with a disc cutter, then put in a fierce fire for a while, nothing recoverable on that except molten metal and ashes.

Lawrence.

[Joe]

To get this thread back 'On Topic,' ie computer speed, I wonder if anyone can solve this.

On my laptop I can click 'Start' and then 'Programs' and the list can take upwards of ten seconds to appear. It'd been de-fragged, CHKDSKed and had CCleaner 'round it and it's the same if no other applications are running. I'm not aware of anything else being slow.

It's a Sony Vaio with a Pentium Dual-Core T2330 1.6GHz processor, 2GB RAM and Windows Vista Home Premium with all up-dates.

- Joe

[Nick]

To get this thread back 'On Topic,' ie computer speed, I wonder if anyone can solve this.

On my laptop I can click 'Start' and then 'Programs' and the list can take upwards of ten seconds to appear. It'd been de-fragged, CHKDSKed and had CCleaner 'round it and it's the same if no other applications are running. I'm not aware of anything else being slow.

It's a Sony Vaio with a Pentium Dual-Core T2330 1.6GHz processor, 2GB RAM and Windows Vista Home Premium with all up-dates.

Could be lots of things, but registry clutter and registry fragmentation spring to mind.

I would use the registry cleaner bit of CCleaner (never given me any grief), then do an OFF LINE de-fragmentation, i.e. one that requires a reboot to run and works on the system disk when its not booted into Windows...

[Radio Fixer]

Luv the 12 bore shot gun method for disk destruction ...

Gary

[Joe]

I'd already used the Registry cleaning part of CCleaner, and it was the same company's Defraggler that I'd used.

I don't know what I did exactly but while trying to get my lap-top to boot to a command prompt so I could do an off-line de-frag something popped up with a name something like "Start-Up Repair." After that had done it's thing it seemed to boot much faster and the Start menu seems to be working much quicker.

Thanks for the tips.

- Joe

[Nick]

I have opened old hard drives with a disc cutter, then put in a fierce fire for a while, nothing recoverable on that except molten metal and ashes.

Another good and common way is to use thermite...