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What steps should be taken to clean a pc when moving to a new job?

What steps should be taken to clean a pc when moving to a new job?

What steps should be taken to clean a pc when moving to a new job? I don't want to leave behind any personal information on my work computer.

Asked by: Guest | Views: 335
Total answers/comments: 4
Guest [Entry]

"At my company they have a data retention policy, all email etc is hosted on the mail server, so you can't really delete it, even if you did, there is usually a policy (at least at my corporation) that email is to be left intact, and besides they have backups if need be, which I think they require by law).

As far as personal data, you should NOT have any personal data @ work, it is NOT your PC (unless you bought it and own it and have that in writing). Usually corporate PC's have corporate policies applied (which applications can/cannot be installed) and 3rd party apps are usually forbidden. I know at my company they are anal about non-standard apps (most dumb users get infected apps / screensavers / garbage) that is not good for a corporate network.

I think your best approach (I am assuming here due to your lack of information) you should talk to your HR person / IT manager, see what data is retained, and what you should remove.
Like I said, at my company they do a full GHOST image of a persons machine when they leave/terminated (usually terminations result in immediate migration of individual away from PC / Servers so that no damage could be done).

UPDATE

I would use this question thread as a plan for your future job, don't put personal data on your work PC. That's a big no-no. Depending on your future company they will monitor your usage both on the web/email/programs you use, some will say ""who has time for that"", machines do... They log stuff ;)

Then if need be they get a human to read the logs. Most corporations do this (I'm not saying its a good thing, just something to keep in mind at your next job.)"
Guest [Entry]

"Give him a brake, it may not be the type of personal info your thinking of. For all we know it could be a home email address he setup with imap at work.

Simple thing is to delete the files, securely if you feel the need to. with Eraser or similar products. Run ccleaner, or glary utls. and then wipe free disk space to make sure its not recoverable.

Portableapps.com has a lot of these apps that can run off a USB stick, if you are not allowed to install apps on the work computer."
Guest [Entry]

"If the company IT knows what it's doing then it should reformat your PC anyway, so a simple delete of any personal data should suffice, despite what anyone says you will have accumulated some over the time at your company - if only browsing histories. Any more and you're doing your IT department's job for them.

Also, most people aren't going to have the time or inclination to download undelete utilities and the like to investigate what what on the machine previously - I know I wouldn't."
Guest [Entry]

"A single zeroing should be enough to ensure data is not recovered, there is a ongoing challenge for professional recovery firms, to recover data from a single zeroed hard drive, and no one has taken the challenge so far

Source: http://hostjury.com/blog/view/195/the-great-zero-challenge-remains-unaccepted"