As if you didn't have enough reason to never lose your laptop

[dodgechevy]

I know that of a sure fire way to destroy a hdd would be to burn it with thermite. Very very very dangerous but somewhat doable.

[Additude]

Every hard drive I have ever destroyed was with a 3 lb sledge hammer with the hard drive sitting on concrete. I smash the bits (phun) out of it and I guarantee, after I have smashed it to bits (there I go again), only a person with an extraordinary amount of time (hundreds of hours) on their hands would be able to reconstruct the platters and I doubt they could ever be reconstructed successfully. Those platters are made out of a solid substrate covered with a very thin layer of magenitc oxide. Basically the oxide is just a super high grade form of rust. That magnetic oxide is what contains the bits (I'm doing it again) of information.

Removing the RAM would not provide any security benefits.

[ncmd_couple]

All fun ways to destroy a drive, and the sledge hammer works off personal frustration, but the easiest way is to disassemble the drive, remove the platters, then sand off the oxide with a sander.

[sweet_tna]

Of course what they're doing is stealing/selling stolen property. And I agree that they should all be thrown in the slammer.

But am I the only one to whom this phrase

details of some quite horrific sounding adult toys

stood out the most? I want to know what was so "horrific sounding" about them . . .

[Additude]

Well Sweet,

I think that may just have been the writers attempt at dis-association with the product.

Had they said, "details of some quite sweet vibrant nice sounding adult toys", the readers may have wondered if the writer held some prior knowledge of the audible quality of an adult toy ...

[quietlykinky]

I use Truecrypt on my laptop and my desktop at home. It's free and damn good encryption.
It can be a little intimidating at first glance but a little bit of study and you'll have it up and running in no time.
Can it be cracked, sure it can, any encryption can be cracked but it's the type of thing that would take months to do and at that point the only people with that kind of dedication and motivation are going to be governments.
I store everything even remotely personal on a truecrypt volume and back it all up so my only real concern about losing my laptop is the monetary loss and the inconvenience.

[dlflorida]

Thanks so much for the help!!

[lv2prty]

i really do not know how to back up stuff on my computer and i don't want to bring it to my local computer guy for fear that he will see something that i don't want him to see. explain in easy terms how to back things up. i have a "my book" external hard drive that my son bought for me, but i don't know what to do with it. also someone told me to put a flash drive in to my USB port, but again i don't know what to do with that. if my computer get lost or stolen, what then do i do with the hard drive or flash drive to get my stuff back onto the new computer? any help will be apreciated.thanks.

[wpafuncpl]

Originally Posted by lv2prty

explain in easy terms how to back things up. i have a "my book" external hard drive that my son bought for me, but i don't know what to do with it. also someone told me to put a flash drive in to my USB port, but again i don't know what to do with that. if my computer get lost or stolen, what then do i do with the hard drive or flash drive to get my stuff back onto the new computer? any help will be apreciated.thanks.

When you save files - word documents, pictures, movies, spreadsheets, etc - you place them in some folder, right? For most people, if they aren't real computer savvy, this is likely the "My Documents" folder. If you look at your computer desktop, there is probably a link to the my documents folder. Many programs save files here by default, so if you never choose to save things in other locations many of your files may be here.

NOTE: THIS IS NOT NECESSARILY THE ONLY PLACE THAT YOU HAVE FILES STORED. There may be other folders that have been created when you installed certain programs, and those programs may use those folders.

After you have located where your files are saved, plug in your external hard drive or USB thumb drive. If you then open up windows explorer, you will see your thumb drive or external hard drive listed. All you have to do is "click and drag" the folders that you want to back up onto the external storage. Thats it. When you want to put them on a new PC, you just plug in the drive and drag them back. All there is to it.

There are other programs out there that can automate this process for you, but this is by far the simplest thing to do.

If you aren't not sure about using Windows Explorer, try checking out this link on YouTube:

YouTube - Learn Basic Computer Skills : Windows Explorer Tutorial

And this one about how to use Explorer to organize your files:

YouTube - Learn Basic Computer Skills : Organizing Files in Microsoft Windows

If those are too basic, my apologies, but I thought that they may help you out. Good luck!

[warrencouple]

Originally Posted by lv2prty

i really do not know how to back up stuff on my computer and i don't want to bring it to my local computer guy for fear that he will see something that i don't want him to see. explain in easy terms how to back things up. i have a "my book" external hard drive that my son bought for me, but i don't know what to do with it. also someone told me to put a flash drive in to my USB port, but again i don't know what to do with that. if my computer get lost or stolen, what then do i do with the hard drive or flash drive to get my stuff back onto the new computer? any help will be apreciated.thanks.

Here's another suggestion for backing up your files to the external hard drive. Look at using the Microsoft SyncToy Basically, you install this, and set up "folder pairs," one folder being the source (the files / folder you want to back up) and one being the "target" (where you want to sync them to) It's handy in that, unlike simply copying the folder, it will skip files that already exist on the target, so if you only made changes to one file, that's all that gets copied.

It can do a few other tricks, but the basics would be enough to back up files.

Now, if you also want to back up your internet favorites, or e-mail, that can get interesting. If you are using Internet Explorer, look for the "Favorites" folder. Where that is depends on what version of Windows you have (98, XP, Vista, 7) E-mail can be tough to back up, again, depending on your e-mail program. Outlook is actually the easiest to back up, as you find your "outlook.pst" file, and back that up.

PM me if you'd like more help, or questions.
Jason

[sweet_tna]

Originally Posted by Additude

Well Sweet,

I think that may just have been the writers attempt at dis-association with the product.

Had they said, "details of some quite sweet vibrant nice sounding adult toys", the readers may have wondered if the writer held some prior knowledge of the audible quality of an adult toy ...

Oh, I know. And me being me . . . that's precisely why that part stood out.