Posted: 11/20/2006 9:30:27 PM EDT
| I have a sony laptop with a warranty from best buy. The computer stopped working. The computer has sensitive company info in quickbooks with no password. I am afraid to take the computer in for repair as others will have access to the sensitive data. Should I have repaired or destroy computer. What say you. |
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the testing utility they use will work without a hard drive assuming the unit powers on at all. if the unit is DOA with no power, chances are the hard drive is good to go, but the motherboard is fried. a common ailment of most laptops with "no power" symptoms is a bad/loose/broken charging jack. this almost always requires a new motherboard. |
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You can remove the drive from the laptop and connect the drive to a USB to IDE adapter. That will allow you to connect the drive to another PC and copy and backup the data. Or, you can purchase an external drive housing that will let you use the laptop drive as an external device. Once up and running, you can copy the My Documents folder and any other data that you might want to save. Depending on what you use for email, you may want to copy the hidden folders that Outlook Express and/or Outlook use. You will have to enable the ability to see these folders in Windows Explorer or just do a wildcard search for them making sure that you use the advanced options in the search window. Search for: *.dbx for Outlook Express or *.pst for Outlook You can also format the drive or run a program like Eraser (free) to destroy the data on the drive if you are truly paranoid. I'd bring in the laptop minus the drive and spring for a new drive. If you can an external drive housing, you'll have the old drive to be able to run the files and settings transfer wizard in XP and get all your stuff back. Plus you'll have the old drive to use for backup and moving large files around. |
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I can tell you how the "Geek Squad" at Best Buy "Might" repair Sony Viao's that are under warrenty.. They may replace the existing dive with another drive that has Sony's build pre-installed on it. They will give you an old drive back if you dig your heels in and force the issue.. it won't necessarly be the drive they took out of your system.. If you're in the Kokomo area I can take a shot at getting the data off and fixing the system.. right after I get back from the dentist.. It's my hobby job since I retired.. |
| Thanks for all the help everyone. I had the hard drive removed as you suggested and sent it back to Sony. I am a MAC user almost exclusively, better luck with them. The secretary used this WIN machine for Quickbooks, I did not know there was a MAC version. Due to the small size of the company and limited software we use I have never needed an IT person. I will report my progress. |
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glad you had it resolved. to answer your original question, no; you can't trust anyone with your data (unless it's on an encrypted volume like TrueCrypt). i can't find the original story, but here's a short version of it: "Destroyed" Hard Drive Ends Up at a Flea Market Thu Jun 1, 2006 1:57PM EDT Not a month goes by that I don't read another story like this: Some poor guy gives his hard drive to someone who said they would "destroy" it... only to find that it ended up resold for quick cash. In this case, a couple in Chicago took their computer to Best Buy for a hard drive upgrade and were told that their old drive would have holes drilled into it to ensure it would be unusable. Months later, the couple gets a call out of the blue: He just bought the old drive, with all the data intact: Social Security numbers, bank statements, and more. Best Buy has yet to take responsibility, issuing a generic "we'll investigate this" statement. What should you do if you're in a similar situation? The simple solution: If a consultant or solution upgrades your drive, simply request the original be returned to you and destroy it yourself. A few whacks with a hammer will render it unusable: Just keep hitting it until you hear pieces rattling around inside. http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/669 |