Tech Forum

I feel really silly about posting this, but I find nothing on this site about what I need to do to an old Clerks office computer before 'turning it in'. All I know is that I'm supposed to format it. Format C: doesn't seem like what they want. Anyone know how to do this? Point me in a good direction...

Please help me clear all 5 of these out of my garage.

THANKS!!!

Unfortunately, formatting a hard drive does NOT totally erase the contents. The only way is to "scrub" or "wipe" the drive by using a utility. The WIKI has a couple of examples of utilities designed for that purpose.

If the computer came from one church building and is going to another clerk's office you could probably get away with just formatting/deleting files. As long as the computer's hard drive is still in a secure location a full wipe shouldn't really be necessary. Only when it leaves the church building to be disposed for good.

rbeede wrote:If the computer came from one church building and is going to another clerk's office you could probably get away with just formatting/deleting files. As long as the computer's hard drive is still in a secure location a full wipe shouldn't really be necessary. Only when it leaves the church building to be disposed for good.

The policy states

Ensure that record-keeping data is completely erased (scrubbed) from computers that are retired from Church use.

It could be interpreted that cascading a computer from one Church organization/unit/department to another means the computer is not retired from Church use. But when most, if not all, computer users do not know where the computer is going once it is turned into the FM office I can only make the safer assumption that the computer is being retired from Church use and follow the procedure stated.

The link to the WIKI did it! Thanks. Funny how difficult it is to find things on this site and to get training in this calling. Anyone know how to fix my stake calendar... can't seem to get any support on that either.

judahh wrote:Anyone know how to fix my stake calendar... can't seem to get any support on that either.

Feel free to post your stake calendar questions in the Calendar forum -- there are plenty of people here willing to help, and to let you know about other support options.

Mikerowaved wrote:Unfortunately, formatting a hard drive does NOT totally erase the contents. The only way is to "scrub" or "wipe" the drive by using a utility. The WIKI has a couple of examples of utilities designed for that purpose.

The link to the WIKI article then gives a link to mls.lds.org where the eraser program is available. I followed the links and discovered that some of the software/articles have just been updated, on the 23rd January!

I keep a USB stick handy that has DBAN (darik's boot and nuke) installed on it. Most of the newer computers have the capability of booting to a USB, so when I'm ready to wipe the hard drive, I just hit F12 when the computer is booting and choose to boot from USB. A few questions and whamo - wiped hard drive!

I tried that DBAN's USB boot, and it never would boot to the USB device, I ended up buring a CD and it worked. ON a side note, what happens to the 5 year old PCs that are turned into the FM group?

Some old PCs are repurposed (ex: FHC). Others are disposed of in an environmentally friendly way.