XP box

[Handsome Jack]

JoeJoe posted

I can wipe clean the HD, but I don't know how to wipe all the personal data off while leaving the OS on. That would be a useful thing to know.

[Huge]

The problem isn't erasing files, it's knowing which files to erase. And the *only* certain method is to DBAN (or equivalent) the disks. (And if you're properly paranoid, to physically destroy them, but that's a little OTT for a home user.)

[Huge]

Indeed, but there's no good way to know. Trash the whole thing.

[Adrian Brentnall]

Yes - that was the original question.... Adrian

[The Natural Philosopher]

Essentially you dont.

No one wants a 6 year old hard drive today anyway. It will be undersized, slow and too small. And almost certainly totally unreliable. The going rate for one is abouyt £3-5.

No one wants XP either, really.

Or the machines it runs on. Which is why whenever I need a box to install linux on, I go to my PC dealer and blag a scapper. Trade ins that are *just* too good to put in the bin. So they end up under the bench instead. All win XP, all 64 bit, all with reasonable memory, but all with useless disks.

Sometimes they are free, sometimes £40-£60. Cash in the coffee fund :-)

Cheaper than a raspberry pi... Linux makes them quitre decent, but as XP machines they are worthless.

And the ONLY value of the disks is to maybe see if any secret info is still on them

So take them out and trash them. Or leave them in and use a linux live CD to wipe them totally clean, by writing all ones zeros or random crap to the whole raw device, so it io completely irrecoverable to anyone less than the NSA.

The machine has some value. XP and the disk? - not so much.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Not really. a bench vice and an angle grinder..

[Chris Green]

Consume much more power than a Pi too though. Excellent as a test machine or a spare desktop but more expensive than a Pi to run as an always on server for instance.

[Chris Green]

"knowing which files to erase" is fairly straightforward on a sensible OS, if you've kept it sensible, you erase /home. If you're really worried you keep /home on a separate drive and destroy that leaving a working system with just the OS on it.

The other way is to make sure that you don't store any sensitive information on the disk drive to start with! Or at least if you do make sure it's reasonably well encrypted.

I don't allow browsers (or whatever) to store *any* of my passwords. For web sites where I really don't care if someone finds my password I use a simple password generation algorithm that allows me to 'know' the password when I log in. I keep important passwords in a properly encrypted password store. I encrypt files I don't want strangers to see.

OK, if GCHQ get my disks they can probably find some things out about me that I didn't really want anyone to know, but I doubt very much if my old computers will b of interest to GCHQ! :-)

[T i m]

(or even Windows and Libre/Open Office)

Agreed.

Agreed.

I installed Linux on a couple of old PC's as an experiment for mate in the PC shop and he actually sold one (£25). It wasn't long before it came back because it wouldn't run his golf program. ;-(

The thing is, few people know what an OS is, let alone know the difference between Windows and Linux, all they (learn to) care about is that the kid next door can help them fix Windows and knows nothing about Linux (along with most PC shops).

A few years ago now I installed Linux for my BIL and he uses that mainly for his everyday needs. He still needs Windows (dual boot) for those 'Windows only' programs and games and it's funny when I go there and find all the Windows programs / installers he's downloaded and finds won't run.

I went up there the other day and whilst there he asked me to explain why the Linux updates wouldn't complete successfully. It gave a clue to their being 'insufficient disk space' but he had 1.9G free on his root partition? Because there were no friendly (/obvious) 'cleanup' tools on Linux I had to roll my sleeves up and deleted about 20 obsolete linux-kernel files (using Synaptic), magically freeing up enough space for the update to complete?

Cheers, T i m

[T i m]

Whoosh ...

Cheers, T i m

[The Natural Philosopher]

Possibly. Its a bit like an aga. Once you stop thinking of it as a cooker and think of it as an actually pretty efficient space heater that you can cook on, it suddenly doesn't matter

This house here has vents to keep it dry. I have taped over them wityh bits of paper, and te CH boiler seems about 30% less active.

Worrying about wheter or not trer is 50W of server in te cirber is not a big issue

My cisco router is teh hottest thing in here anyway. must be about 50W..

[T i m]

For what (usage)?

BS. The older drives seem to be more reliable than the newer ones.

Given the choice of XP or 'Linux', I'm not so sure.

Which could be perfectly good (and possibly low usage) kit. I was given an old XP laptop the other day that had about 100 hours on the (original) drive.

Often with useable disks, enough memory to run XP ok (512MB) but not enough to even install Linux.

Or you can get them off Freecycle, if you are quick.

Not if they are free they aren't (to use with XP that is).

You got that A about F mate.

Or re-installing XP on them and just carrying on (as I am here on a Mac Mini / XP).

Way to complicated for any 'ordinary user'. If they can download a burn a copy of dban, they might stand a chance of booting and running that.

The machine would generally have most value to ordinary people as a fully working XP (not Linux) machine.

I have installed (dual boot) and later un-installed Linux enough times that 'most people' won't or can't use it, unless their needs are

*very* basic and they don't mind the extra challenge and risk.

When we went to the inlaws recently he mentioned that his backup drive didn't work (on Ubuntu). I asked him if had tried to use it as it was, with the Clickfree dongle still connected in series to the external USB drive. He said he had, so unplugged it and ran the backup utility I'd setup for him previously.

On Windows XP/ W10, he just plugs the drive and dongle into the PC and it does it all for him.

Cheers, T i m

[JoeJoe]

Wipe it clean and re-install the OS.

[Tim Lamb]

In message , T i m writes

I wondered if mentioning computers would start a mega thread:-)

It is only 32 bit and had started being a bit careless about dragging and dropping files. I'll move it to a dry barn to get over the immediate problem.

[Chris Green]

True, but it's worth factoring in when deciding whether to re-use an old system or buy a new one.

[T i m]

Better than Brexit though eh. ;-)

Did you know you can 'undo' those actions (if you realise you have done something wrong). Because you can make such mistakes, I tend to copy and paste then delete or cut and paste if I'm feeling confident. ;-)

Is the right answer. There's bound to be an excuse for us to bring something in or to enjoy some of that lovely home cooking again. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[Huge]

[32 lines snipped]

I'm not convinced that's true, but it's irrelevant, since we're talking about Windows XP.

[whisky-dave]

This have moved on we now talk about giga and tera so this could end up a tera thread.

Of course using such an old computer I;m guessing that secirity and the recent possible expliots won't be fixed on these old system so another reason not to use old hardware on-line at least.

[Handsome Jack]

I don't have an installation disk.

[Huge]

So wipe it clean and dispose of it empty. Or install Linux Mint.