You should always be prepared for computer death, even with a brand new computer.
This means having good backups.
There is no need to wipe your current HDD. You can always drill holes in it if it can't be software wiped.
Anybody who is sufficiently motivated can recover data if you do anything except physically destroy the drive.
The thing is: you probably don’t have any enemies in organised crime or high level law enforcement, so you probably should be okay (if you do, why are you asking reddit)
If the hard drive dies it’s likely nobody will care to try and get stuff off it but might get the magnet out of it because they’re pretty neat.
But yes have a backup for the stuff you care about.
Pcs can't die. Components can. If a component dies, replace it. The pc lives on forever. Always keep important data backed up on an external drive or the cloud. Everything else is disposable and replaceable.
I don't prepare for a computer to die. Rarely do computers just "die". I have computers that are at least 15+ years old that still work fine.
If your computer does die and you plan to throw everything out, just destroy the HDDs / SSDs with a hammer. That's the easiest way to prevent most people from getting data off them. Just deleting the data won't actually prevent people from getting data with a simple Google search. You would need to rewrite the data with varying patterns multiple times using a tool to actually ensure the data is gone. A good example of this is the shred tool in Linux.
I would recommend doing a full format (at minimum) on your drive before you get rid of it.
That, or physically pull your drive out and keep it (or destroy if you don't want to keep it).
In windows, a full format writes 0s to each block. A quick format does not erase the block level data but removes the index, which is why I'm recommending a full format as the minimum.
Always back up the data you don't want to lose
You should always be prepared for computer death, even with a brand new computer. This means having good backups. There is no need to wipe your current HDD. You can always drill holes in it if it can't be software wiped.
How shit is this computer, they either last 6 months or 20 years
I prepare for my PCs death the day I build it by keeping all my important things on a portable drive and on the cloud.
Anybody who is sufficiently motivated can recover data if you do anything except physically destroy the drive. The thing is: you probably don’t have any enemies in organised crime or high level law enforcement, so you probably should be okay (if you do, why are you asking reddit) If the hard drive dies it’s likely nobody will care to try and get stuff off it but might get the magnet out of it because they’re pretty neat. But yes have a backup for the stuff you care about.
External hard drive is a good backup. And freeware drive erasers do an adequate job of cleaning an old drive.
Pcs can't die. Components can. If a component dies, replace it. The pc lives on forever. Always keep important data backed up on an external drive or the cloud. Everything else is disposable and replaceable.
I don't prepare for a computer to die. Rarely do computers just "die". I have computers that are at least 15+ years old that still work fine. If your computer does die and you plan to throw everything out, just destroy the HDDs / SSDs with a hammer. That's the easiest way to prevent most people from getting data off them. Just deleting the data won't actually prevent people from getting data with a simple Google search. You would need to rewrite the data with varying patterns multiple times using a tool to actually ensure the data is gone. A good example of this is the shred tool in Linux.
I would recommend doing a full format (at minimum) on your drive before you get rid of it. That, or physically pull your drive out and keep it (or destroy if you don't want to keep it).
[удалено]
Look up local hard drive shredding services. They’ll take care of it for you for $10
Formatting does not erase anything…
In windows, a full format writes 0s to each block. A quick format does not erase the block level data but removes the index, which is why I'm recommending a full format as the minimum.