Computer Related > Sending PC away for repair - Security? Miscellaneous
Thread Author: VR6 Replies: 16
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 Tue 4 May 10 17:45 
 Sending PC away for repair - Security? - VR6
My netbook has developed an intermittent fault with the screen, and needs to be sent away for repair.

I am a little concerned about the security of the stuff on my C drive, in particular my emails on Outlook and saved usernames/passwords in my browser. I don't have anything super-sensitive on my PC, just personal emails, photos, music etc...

Its running XP, and I have a password protected 'admin' log-on. Is this relatively secure with a very long/complicated password? I really don't want to backup, format and reinstall the OS if there is another, less secure, but okish way.

Am I being naive to assume the repair people will be trustworthy (repair to be carried out via Samsung dealer network).
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 Tue 4 May 10 18:01 
 Sending PC away for repair - Security? - Zero
>> Its running XP and I have a password protected 'admin' log-on. Is this relatively secure
>> with a very long/complicated password?

No its not secure. There a gazzilion tools to crack an XP password, I have a cd full of them and it is the work of moments to access an XP account.



>> Am I being naive to assume the repair people will be trustworthy (repair to be
>> carried out via Samsung dealer network).

yes you are. Remember how garry glitter got caught.

export your docs and emails to another medium,and delete them from your laptop OR encrypt them using any number of free tools.
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 Tue 4 May 10 18:09 
 Sending PC away for repair - Security? - Zero
I didnt of course mean to suggest your machine is anything like GGs.
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 Tue 4 May 10 18:19 
 Sending PC away for repair - Security? - VR6
Thanks for that Zero. I hadn't realised it was so easy to crack the XP password, I must look that up out of curiosity.

Also, thanks for clearing up the GG comment, no offence taken as you posted to clarify so quickly!
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 Wed 5 May 10 00:30 
 Sending PC away for repair - Security? - JohnM{P}
I thought I read that the password cracking tools could handle up to 14 characters, so it is recommended that you choose one with 15 or more characters (so long as you can remember it :-) )
If that's incorrect/an urban myth, I trust someone will correct me!
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 Wed 5 May 10 08:44 
 Sending PC away for repair - Security? - Zero
>> I thought I read that the password cracking tools could handle up to 14 characters
>> so it is recommended that you choose one with 15 or more characters (so long
>> as you can remember it :-) )
>> If that's incorrect/an urban myth I trust someone will correct me!

Thats if you wish to crack the password. They can still be cracked by a "brute force attack" just takes a little longer. This is of course if you wish to know the password. This knowledge is pretty useless tho as XP account security is so weak its simply bypassed or the password is turned off.
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 Wed 5 May 10 07:16 
 Sending PC away for repair - Security? - ....
Why not just take the harddrive out ?
Confirm with the repairer before sending.
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 Wed 5 May 10 08:46 
 Sending PC away for repair - Security? - VR6
I cant take the HD out as its a netbook, and would require me to take half the computer apart invalidating my warranty.
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 Wed 5 May 10 11:52 
 Sending PC away for repair - Security? - John H
Copy all your documents to a couple of external backup locations and then wipe them from your hard drive.
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 Wed 5 May 10 12:03 
 Sending PC away for repair - Security? - Tooslow
anything wiped can be recovered in seconds with something such as Recuva from the excellent ccleaner people. You need to overwrite it too. Actually I think ccleaner will do that for you. If not...

"Erase deleted files" in Google will bring up a good selection. Acronis backup will do it too.

This is getting rather paranoid but you did ask... :-(

JH
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 Wed 5 May 10 12:20 
 Sending PC away for repair - Security? - BobbyG
VR6, I had to return my Samsung NC20 netbook due to a keyboard error.

I used the Samsung backup program and backed up the full contents to an external hard drive. Then I deleted all files etc (though no doubt these could probably be recovered by dodgy dave)

When I got my new netbook, I simply restored from the backup and everything went exactly where it should have.
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 Wed 5 May 10 13:01 
 Sending PC away for repair - Security? - John H
>> anything wiped can be recovered in seconds with something such as Recuva from the

>>
>> JH
>>

"wiped" to me implies more than "deleted".
As you say, CCleaner has a built in secure eraser, and Heidi's eraser 5.7 if you can get hold of it was a good one.
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 Wed 5 May 10 13:20 
 Sending PC away for repair - Security? - John H

>> As you say CCleaner has a built in secure eraser and Heidi's eraser 5.7 if
>> you can get hold of it was a good one.
>>

download older eraser versions 5.7 and 5.8.8 here sourceforge.net/projects/eraser/files/
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 Wed 5 May 10 13:37 
 Sending PC away for repair - Security? - VR6
Righty-o. Thanks for all the advice. To be honest, I'm more worried about someone gaining acces to my ebay, C4P, HJ (ahem), Paypal accounts on-line as passwords are saved. They are welcome to sift through all my photos of me on holiday if they want, and read my letters of complaint to BT and Sky!

I have taken what I think is the easiest but drawn out option:

I have made an 'image' of my hard disk on an external HDD. All I have to do now is figure out how to clean install XP. I'm pretty sure its on a partition on the HDD somewhere, but no idea how to 'boot' from it.
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 Wed 5 May 10 13:39 
 Sending PC away for repair - Security? - smokie
Why not simply delete your stored passwords?
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 Wed 5 May 10 15:33 
 Sending PC away for repair - Security? - Tooslow
John H, apologies if I was nit picking. it does need to be made clear to VR6 though, not implying any lack of knowledge on VR6s part. It's best not to shoot yourself in the foot when it's in your mouth. :-)

VR6, I think if you hit F10 while booting you'll boot from the recovery partition. Is there not a message during normal boot?

Deleting the pws is the best option, as suggested by Smokie. Dunno what browser you use but if you go into Tool there'll be an option in there to clear remembered pws.

JH
Last edited by: Tooslow on Wed 5 May 10 at 15:33
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 Wed 5 May 10 18:03 
 Sending PC away for repair - Security? - Iffy
...Paypal accounts on-line as passwords are saved...

Slight drift from computer repairs, but when my current account was scammed for about £650, one of the few questions the bank asked was:

Do you have a Paypal account?

I did, but I do no longer.
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