Awareness Campaign - Computer Security 101
Selling your computer, or replacing the hard drive
Properly erasing information from a computer is just as important as logging out. Before you dispose of a computer, or replace a hard drive, make sure that you clean it with special software to make sure that future owners of the equipment can't access your information. Even if you think it's just going in the garbage, completely wipe all of the information. Remember, your trash may be a criminal's treasure.
Question 10. You just bought a brand-new MacBook Pro™ and want to sell your old laptop on eBay to help defray the cost. To clean your old hard drive before you sell your computer, you:
| A |  | Use special software designed to expunge your computer of all data. |
| B | Wipe down your laptop with Clorox Anti-Bacterial Wipes. | |
| C | Drag and drop all your documents to the Recycle Bin. | |
| D | Overwrite your hard drive by typing C:\Erase_all_data in the address bar. |
You need to do more than just delete your files—you need to sanitize your hard drive. You can purchase low-cost software for this purpose; check out some good choices at http://safecomputing.umich.edu/tools/clean_drive.html. For more information, check out the data removal policy and procedures on the University’s Property Disposition Web site: http://www.umich.edu/~ofa/PropDisp/html/compprocedure.html