Hello, for the MacBook Pro, I just use the "Erase All Content and Settings" option and trust that Apple would take care of the rest to make my user data and settings unretrievable by whoever would have access to my laptop after return. For Windows laptops, can we securely do the same thing? I read that in Windows, data can still be recoverable by somebody with the knowledge even the previous user used the built-in "Reset this PC" tool, reformatted the drive and reinstalled Windows before selling/returning the computer.
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Can we securely erase user data and settings in Windows laptop like the Mac?
- Thread starter hajime
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Steve Adams
macrumors 68020
Thats like it for any PC with a hard drive built in. It takes special software etc. But I would not worry about that imo. Windows systems for the most part you can format your drive then load windows back on if you sell your system. Erase all contents and settings is the best thing you have on the Apple side of things.
Part of the deal when using Personal computers. I would not worry about it IMO.
EDIT: make sure you create a bootable USB drive from windows media creation tool site so you can re install.
Part of the deal when using Personal computers. I would not worry about it IMO.
EDIT: make sure you create a bootable USB drive from windows media creation tool site so you can re install.
Ben J.
macrumors 65816
Not macs - assuming by "PC" you mean any personal computer including macs.
Modern macs have the security T2 chip and an extensive security design in software and hardware, that will not give anyone access to, and recover, any data - erased or not, without the associated main password. I don't know, but I never heard that windows has anything similar or even close.
On a windows machine, I would think the only way to make the data inaccessible would be to do, not only a format, but a low level rewrite of all the sectors of the disk.
Steve Adams
macrumors 68020
You can do a heavy format for resell on windows. There is also the quick format which will "erase" everything but can still be recovered. your choice. For doing formats of systems and drives you are keeping the quick format will work. If you are selling the system, then do the NON quick format option. I can't remember the name right now.
Thanks.
I am a bit confused. Do you mean ulike the Mac, if we don't create a bootable USB drive, then we cannot reinstall Windows after reformatting the SSD or use "Erase all contents and settings"? I think few years ago, "Erase all contents and settings" did the erasing but Windows was still in the computer after the process.
Once anybody found out the name for "NON quick format option", please let us know.
Steve Adams
macrumors 68020
It's called "full format". It' does the quick format then writes zeros to every sector on the drive. it takes a long time, but it removes ALL data from the drive. roughly one hour per half gig of space.
!!!
macrumors 65816
The easiest way to have something like this on PC is to encrypt the drive (BitLocker) when you first set up the PC, and then when selling it just reformat the drive. This is all that's happening on Mac, it is just forgetting the encryption keys to your encrypted data volume and reformatting it. No need to do overwrites.