What to do on PC before leaving company?

[akkkmed]

Today's the last day of my internship. (happy and sad)

I have this wonderful HP ProBook that I've been using the past 2.5 months. I obviously can't wipe the drive or anything even close to that.

Is there anything else I should do before turning the laptop in? I downloaded CCleaner before they stopped the ability to download programs. So I assume I should run it, erase all cookies, etc., along with delete my personal files? Nothing I have is private. Plus, they can't access my account without my password. I just want to make sure to do everything correctly...

Thanks :woot:

[XReflection]

What I usually do is:
-delete files that you've downloaded
-pack up all the files related to work you've done and give them to your mentor/boss/supervisor

Stuff I sometimes do:
-Erase cookies/history etc...

[akkkmed]

What I usually do is:
-delete files that you've downloaded
-pack up all the files related to work you've done and give them to your mentor/boss/supervisor

Stuff I sometimes do:
-Erase cookies/history etc...
Thanks. I've already put the work files on a site, as I was instructed to.

[teetee1]

As I understand all the files that are work related belongs to the company.
For your private files ccleaner can take care of some. Others (ex. music, video, photos, chat history, etc) requires some knowledge to get rid of them manually.

Anyone who can physically access the computer is able to get the file off the drive. The mere password can't stop them.

Since there is nothing private, just give it back as it is will be fine.

[akkkmed]

As I understand all the files that are work related belongs to the company.
For your private files ccleaner can take care of some. Others (ex. music, video, photos, chat history, etc) requires some knowledge to get rid of them manually.

Anyone who can physically access the computer is able to get the file off the drive. The mere password can't stop them.

Since there is nothing private, just give it back as it is will be fine.
Ok.

And for the record, the drive is encrypted to the max. So no, they can't access the drive. Even the daily backups that are on the server take 2-3 days to unencrypt if need be.

[ashcampbell]

Today's the last day of my internship. (happy and sad)

I have this wonderful HP ProBook that I've been using the past 2.5 months. I obviously can't wipe the drive or anything even close to that.

Is there anything else I should do before turning the laptop in? I downloaded CCleaner before they stopped the ability to download programs. So I assume I should run it, erase all cookies, etc., along with delete my personal files? Nothing I have is private. Plus, they can't access my account without my password. I just want to make sure to do everything correctly...

Thanks :woot:

I can access any user's files quite easily. Only ones that give any trouble are outlook since I dont have admin control of our exchange server. But if they are archived or in a .PST I'm in like Flynn.

I'd assume IT(or someone if a small company) has full admin control of the lappy.

[akkkmed]

I can access any user's files quite easily. Only ones that give any trouble are outlook since I dont have admin control of our exchange server. But if they are archived or in a .PST I'm in like Flynn.

I'd assume IT(or someone if a small company) has full admin control of the lappy.
You may or may not be right. I'd be very interested in knowing (for learning and curiosity purposes), but since I don't have anything sensitive on here, I don't care at this point :)

*Edit: It's not a small company

[kakomu]

If you're paranoid about people rooting around the HDD looking for whatever stuff you had already deleted, you can always make giant dummy files until the HDD is filled to capacity. That will prevent people from using programs like NTFS Undelete :lol:

[ashcampbell]

As for looking for stuff...I dont. I usually just reimage the computer.

I delete the user's account only if I'm feeling frisky or their mgr asks me to look for stuff. I then casually glance at the file names being deleted. I shit you not I've found more porn, fetish porn, and dating sites this way.

The other thing to delete is the recent documents if you've been looking at stuff you really had no business doing. If you checked all the options in ccleaner then you're fine. :)

I assume you're on a domain. I'm in the server and system admin groups + 20 others. I have full administrative control of any computer or server that is in my domain and any machine where I've been granted local admin rights I can bypass the need for domain credentials. These rights can be granted through group policy or directly adding my or any user account(That I have the login credentials) into the admin group on those machines.

The other thing is your user account. Just because your password is a mofillion characters long doesnt mean whoever controls AD cant simply change your password to morningwood and look things over. :)

[akkkmed]

As for looking for stuff...I dont. I usually just reimage the computer.

I delete the user's account only if I'm feeling frisky or their mgr asks me to look for stuff. I then casually glance at the file names being deleted. I shit you not I've found more porn, fetish porn, and dating sites this way.

The other thing to delete is the recent documents if you've been looking at stuff you really had no business doing. If you checked all the options in ccleaner then you're fine. :)

I assume you're on a domain. I'm in the server and system admin groups + 20 others. I have full administrative control of any computer or server that is in my domain and any machine where I've been granted local admin rights I can bypass the need for domain credentials. These rights can be granted through group policy or directly adding my or any user account(That I have the login credentials) into the admin group on those machines.

The other thing is your user account. Just because your password is a mofillion characters long doesnt mean whoever controls AD cant simply change your password to morningwood and look things over. :)
That helps. I don't have ANYTHING [too] personal. The max would be my cookies for websites, but I'll be sure to delete those in Firefox and then in CCleaner. And then some school stuff, but that hardly matters...

Thanks!

[komondor]

if backups were done they have all your files anyway. I usually tell people not to worry about the stuff at all. The Laptops as has been stated are just reimaged.
I would be more concerned about saving off any emails or files you want to keep.

if the drive is encrypted then you used a password the company knows. We use 2 different 3rd party encryption packages and both have admin disks the company has created for when people forget their passwords or someone quits/dies!

The backups are encrypted but the admins have that information. Firewall logs will show every web site you went to.

Don't worry be happy and hope if you want you can come back to work again. A wiped computer always peaks my curiosity. I have software that can recover files from 2 formats so just don't sweat it. if you did do anything the police will want to know about they will find what you did, if you didn't then don't worry!!!!!!!!!!!

[kakomu]

I have software that can recover files from 2 formats so just don't sweat it.

I'd like to know about this "software" considering I've yet to find any proof that you can recover data after the drive has been overwritten.

[moey]

I'd like to know about this "software" considering I've yet to find any proof that you can recover data after the drive has been overwritten.

the poster mentioned formatting not technology to fill the disk with useless information

[komondor]

r-studio can do I saw a demo once that shows 3 formats and it could pick files out

http://www.data-recovery-software.net/#features
Standard Windows Explorer - style interface.
Host OS: Windows 9x, ME, NT, 2000, XP, 2003 Server, Vista, 2008 Server, Windows 7.
Data recovery over the Network. Files can be recovered on network computers running Win95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008/Windows 7, Macintosh, Linux, and UNIX.
Supported file systems: FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, exFAT, NTFS, NTFS5 (created or updated by Win2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008/Win7), HFS/HFS+ (Macintosh), Little and Big Endian variants of UFS1/UFS2 (FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD/Solaris) and Ext2/Ext3/Ext4 FS (Linux).
Recognition and parsing Dynamic (Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008/Win7), Basic(MBR) and BSD (UNIX) partitions layout schema and Apple partition map. Dynamic partitions over GPT are supported as well as dynamic partitions over MBR.
Damaged RAID recovery. If the OS cannot recognize your RAID, you can create a virtual RAID from its components. Such virtual RAID can be processed like a real one.
Creates IMAGE FILES for an entire Hard Disk, Partition or its part. Such image files can be compressed and split into several files to put it on CD/DVD/flash or FAT16/FAT32/exFAT. Then the image files can be processed like regular disks.
Data recovery on damaged or deleted partitions, encrypted files (NTFS 5), alternative data streams (NTFS, NTFS 5).
Recovering data if:
FDISK or other disk utilities have been run;
VIRUS has invaded; FAT is damaged; MBR is destroyed.
Recognizes localized names.
Recovered files can be saved on any (including network) disks accessible by the host operating system.
File or disk content can be viewed and edited with the advanced hexadecimal editor. The editor supports NTFS file attribute editing.

[kakomu]

the poster mentioned formatting not technology to fill the disk with useless information
The implication seemed to be filling the disk with useless information, considering he gave a specific quantity (2 formats). If he's referring to undelete programs, you still recover data after 1000 formats.

[brbubba]

If you have nothing sensitive why even ask? Just turn it in, don't muck around with anything. Asking just makes it seem like you are trying to hide something.

[kakomu]

If you have nothing sensitive why even ask? Just turn it in, don't muck around with anything. Asking just makes it seem like you are trying to hide something.

Probably asked for fear of the guilty until proven innocent thinking that your post demonstrates.

[brbubba]

Probably asked for fear of the guilty until proven innocent thinking that your post demonstrates.

Yeah but 9 times out of 10 the IT guy is just going to say, "ok used computer, reimage." It's a waste of his time and resources to go through it, especially when they have other, better, avenues to track people.

[akkkmed]

/end thread

Deleted my files and ran CCleaner. Now I'm home sweet home. Thanks guys (even if the thread was unnecessary)

[Monkfish]

/end thread

Deleted my files and ran CCleaner. Now I'm home sweet home. Thanks guys (even if the thread was unnecessary)

Not so fast.

/:)

[regedit]

Go to Run
type temp enter thenctrl+A then do Shift+del
again goto Run type %temp% enter then ctrl+A then do Shift+del
again goto Run type prefetch enter then ctrl+A then do Shift+del
check if you had any personal items in MyDocuemts
Open browsers and del all the history (files, cookies....everything)

Then you are good I guess.

[redmaxx]

if the drive is encrypted then you used a password the company knows. We use 2 different 3rd party encryption packages and both have admin disks the company has created for when people forget their passwords or someone quits/dies!

This actually depends. For our Windows machines, a recovery key is saved to an admin server when the laptop is encrypted. For the Linux boxes, they use LUKS, which saves nothing. If you forget your password, you're hosed.