Notice On Deleting Data From Your Hard Disk - Lenovo 147500112 Safety And General Information Manual

Safety and General Information Guide V1.0_en.book Page 38 Friday, March 4, 2011 4:55 PM
Appendix A. Notices

Notice on deleting data from your hard disk

As computers spread into every corner of life, they process more and more
information. The data on your computer, some of it sensitive, is stored on a
storage device called the hard disk. Before you dispose of, sell, or hand over
your computer, you need to delete that data.
Handing your computer over to someone else without deleting the loaded
software, such as operating systems and application software, may even
violate License Agreements. You are advised to check the terms and
conditions of those Agreements.
Deleting the data from the hard disk is not easy.
There are methods that seem to delete the data:
• Move the data to the recycle bin, and then choose the Empty recycle bin
command.
• Use the Delete command.
• Format your hard disk, using the software for initializing it.
• Using the preinstalled recovery program, bring the hard disk back to
factory-ship state.
These operations, however, only change the file allocation of the data; they
do not delete the data itself. In other words, the data retrieval processing is
disabled under an operating system such as Windows. The data is still there,
even though it seems to be lost. Thus, it is sometimes possible to read the
data by use of special software for data recovery. There is a risk that people
of bad faith may read and misuse the critical data on hard disks for
unexpected purposes.
To prevent the leakage of data, it becomes very important that you take
responsibility for deleting all the data from the hard disk when you dispose
of, sell, or hand over your computer. You can destroy the data physically by
smashing the hard disk with a hammer, or magnetically by means of strong
magnetic power, thus making the data unreadable. But we recommend that
you make use of the software (payware) or service (pay service) specifically
developed for the purpose.
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