How to Keep Your Personal Information Safe When Sending Your System for a Repair?

Have you ever thought that the faulty computer that you are giving for repair can cost you more than the loss in productivity? It can cost you your personal information. You guessed it right, not all the computer repair guy follow the ethical guidelines of not touching client’s data. Hence, it is better to take precautionary measure when faced with computer problem. I will suggest following these tips as these will help you safeguard your data.

Personal information safety tips

1. Do not give your hard disk when submitting your PC or laptop to computer repair shop. They always have spare hard disk to do the job needed.
2. If taking your hard disk away from your system is not an option then ask the repair guy to connect your hard disk to some other system so that you can wipe your personal information from your system.
3. Do not forget to remove all the usernames and passwords from instant messengers, twitter and other social networking clients, websites, and windows. Also clear all recent history, cache file, etc., from every browser that you use.
4. As a preventive measure you can download and install a free encryption program on your computer while your computer or laptop is functional, so that you can encrypt all your data when you have to send it to the PC repair shop.
5. Alternatively, you can take the backup of your personal data in a secure backup device, and shred the data from your hard disk. For this you will need to install a data shredder. Go for a good open-source alternative or freeware. Just pressing shift + Delete will not be enough as permanently deleted data can still be recovered.

Once you are through with these steps, you can relax, send your system to the repair guy, and impatiently (I know you cannot be patient when your system is gone) wait for it getting fixed.