Question Family member threw out old pc tower with hard drive still in it

[hei245]

So a family member put a pc tower in a box and I told them not to do anything to it, by the time I had came back, they had threw away the pc tower with the hard drive inside(they were not seperated like the hard drive was still inside the pc tower which was placed in a box)... How bad is this? I'm afraid of someone doxxing me, using my name, or even doing some weird crap(with ai) with some photos(family pictures, vacation pics, and pics before going out to hang out) , and just a lot of embarrassing stuff. i'm pursuing a public career and would hate for this to affect me in the future. Very upset by this situation

edit: they threw it with the trash where actual trash from the house goes. Not a dumpster, Like a trash can which gets emptied by a garage truck. There was a password on the computer to login. The pc hadn't worked for 3 years crashed and never turned on (crashed when deleting and uploading files,never worked after that and was extremely slow. )The hard drive was 13 years old and the device was 13 years old as well.

for future purposes what parts of pc am i suppose to take out so no one can access data?

 

[kanewolf]

So a family member put a pc tower in a box and I told them not to do anything to it, by the time I had came back, they had threw away the pc tower with the hard drive inside... How bad is this? I'm afraid of someone doxxing me, using my name, or even doing some weird crap(with ai) with some photos(family pictures, vacation pics, and pics before going out to hang out) , and just a lot of embarrassing stuff. i'm pursuing a public career and would hate for this to affect me in the future. Very upset by this situation

Unknown, since you don't know where it went. Best case,the city picked it up and it is buried in a landfill. Worst case, some tech savvy teenager with bad intentions has it. What ACTUALLY happened, unknown.

 

[ohio_buckeye]

Yeah you have no idea. Just pray it was picked up and put into a landfill or smashed into pieces.

 

[hei245]

Unknown, since you don't know where it went. Best case,the city picked it up and it is buried in a landfill. Worst case, some tech savvy teenager with bad intentions has it. What ACTUALLY happened, unknown.

they threw it with the trash where other trash from the house goes. Not a dumpster, Like a trash can which gets emptied.

 

[hei245]

Yeah you have no idea. Just pray it was picked up and put into a landfill or smashed into pieces.

they threw it with the trash where other trash from the house goes. Not a dumpster, Like a trash can which gets emptied. Would this still be an issue?

 

[Ubrales]

Where I live, just prior to trash pickup day, at least a couple of pickup trucks will drive by picking up scrap iron and useable furniture. These are salvage people and they do dismantle items for useable parts. If the OS and the Files are password protected as most computers are, you can breathe a sigh of relief. If not, there could be bad things happening.

At the very least, you should change all your accounts passwords using good, strong passwords. I tell my friends "If you can remember your password, it is no good; too weak!"

Also, consider passphrases. Here is an example of one of mine that I don't use anymore: "31_IyKaTiTa_$014_#YbHaPtDwHt_&62" (If you kick a tiger you better have a plan to deal with his teeth).

Changing all your passwords will save you to a great extent. Regarding the 'embarrassing stuff' just bite the bullet!

 

[kanewolf]

they threw it with the trash where other trash from the house goes. Not a dumpster, Like a trash can which gets emptied.

It is most likely buried in a landfill.
Lock your credit. Buy credit monitoring.
When my identity was stolen, first warning I got was from Discover card. You might get some protection from your existing credit cards.

 

[hei245]

Where I live, just prior to trash pickup day, at least a couple of pickup trucks will drive by picking up scrap iron and useable furniture. These are salvage people and they do dismantle items for useable parts. If the OS and the Files are password protected as most computers are, you can breathe a sigh of relief. If not, there could be bad things happening.

At the very least, you should change all your accounts passwords using good, strong passwords. I tell my friends "If you can remember your password, it is no good; too weak!"

Also, consider passphrases. Here is an example of one of mine that I don't use anymore: "31_IyKaTiTa_$014_#YbHaPtDwHt_&62" (If you kick a tiger in the ass you better have a plan to deal with his teeth).

Changing all your passwords will save you to a great extent. Regarding the 'embarrassing stuff' just bite the bullet!

oh okay. There was a password on the computer to even login. The pc hadn't worked for 3 years crashed and never turned on (crashed when deleting and uploading files and was extremely slow. )The hard drive was 13 years old.

 

[Ubrales]

oh okay. I didn't encrypt anything but there was a password on the computer to even login. The pc hadn't worked for 3 years crashed and never turned on (crashed when deleting and uploading files and was extremely slow. )The hard drive was 13 years old.

The login password should prevent novices from starting up the computer. If everything was on the C: Drive, you have some level of safety because of the login password. Let me guess; Windows XP? For something this old (13 years) and your login password, you have a good probability that nothing bad will happen (except for the pics).

However, use this as an opportunity to change all your passwords to strong ones.

 

[35below0]

Hard drives are resilient but a trip in the garbage truck is not ideal for them.

Someone would have to fish it out of the garbage. It's possible the computer was separated from other trash and sorted for recycling. As it's probably dead, i doubt anyone would bother rescuing the HDD and trying to use or sell it.
The OS is password protected, and very likely un bootable anyway. The files can be accessed IF the HDD still works.

It's probably finished.

 

[hei245]

Hard drives are resilient but a trip in the garbage truck is not ideal for them.

Someone would have to fish it out of the garbage. It's possible the computer was separated from other trash and sorted for recycling. As it's probably dead, i doubt anyone would bother rescuing the HDD and trying to use or sell it.
The OS is password protected, and very likely un bootable anyway. The files can be accessed IF the HDD still works.

It's probably finished.

sorry i'm a bit confused by what you mean by finished?

 

[35below0]

sorry i'm a bit confused by what you mean by finished?

I mean dead. Either it's not working at all due to damage or the file system is corrupted.

 

[SyCoREAPER]

As others mentioned, it's gone. You'll never get it it back or find it.

70% chance it's in a landfill. 20% chance it got sorted and sent to a electronic recycling center and nobody there will care what's on it, they tare them down for metals. 10% chance someone will scrounge the drive and of that 10% chance, probably a 1 - 2% chance they will find anything of interest or be interested in bothering with your data if what you said is on it is on it and even recoverable.

Upsetting situation, my parents threw my original Power Ranger Zords away when I was younger, I was pissed and upset but life moves on. Don't obsess over it, chances of someone ruining your future from an old 13 year old computer are slim to none. Hundreds of PCs end up in landfills every day, yours isn't anything special.

 

[CountMike]

So a family member put a pc tower in a box and I told them not to do anything to it, by the time I had came back, they had threw away the pc tower with the hard drive inside... How bad is this? I'm afraid of someone doxxing me, using my name, or even doing some weird crap(with ai) with some photos(family pictures, vacation pics, and pics before going out to hang out) , and just a lot of embarrassing stuff. i'm pursuing a public career and would hate for this to affect me in the future. Very upset by this situation

edit: they threw it with the trash where actual trash from the house goes. Not a dumpster, Like a trash can which gets emptied by a garage truck. There was a password on the computer to login. The pc hadn't worked for 3 years crashed and never turned on (crashed when deleting and uploading files,never worked after that and was extremely slow. )The hard drive was 13 years old and the device was 13 years old as well.

It all depends how trash is handled and disposed of at your place. Check with trash disposal company. In most civilized places, trash is sorted before ending in landfill and metal is removed for recycling. Now about HDDs, they are very robust when not running, after all they have to survive a lot of abuse form factory to you. Just a password to OS or BIOS doesn't prevent data recovery, it could be recovered by simply plugging it in another PC. Even encryption and file deletion wouldn't stop somebody with right tools to extract most data. That's why governments and corporations do not settle for less than shredding disks in small pieces.

 

[catsmoke]

How bad is this?

It's not bad at all. There is practically zero chance that someone is going to take a hard drive out a trash can, garbage truck, or a landfill, and then go plug it in somewhere and read what's on the drive.

If someone is computer-savvy enough to recognize what that hard drive is, and they have the knowhow to access the data on the drive, then they are too smart to go digging around in the trash.

If I saw a hard drive in a bunch of garbage, I wouldn't touch it. And I sure wouldn't think, "There's probably useful information on that drive!"

 

[35below0]

If I saw a hard drive in a bunch of garbage, I wouldn't touch it. And I sure wouldn't think, "There's probably useful information on that drive!"

Somewhere, out there, there is a HDD with Beastie Boys Hot sauce committee pt.1 on it.
It was never backed up. They left it somewhere in Montana years ago.
And it's gone.

It's somewhere.

Maybe it's even alive.

 

[stonecarver]

It's a very tricky question to answer. I do agree that it's in a land fill or already shredded as scrap.

If this happened to me I would want to know one thing to give me piece of mind when it was placed for trash was it in the trash can or was it out with the trash sitting visible to the public.

I can't tell you how many times I have made a U-turn and hit a gold mine of curb parts.

I have gotten many hard drives years ago and password or not I always checked the drive for not so good saves. I did it to make sure I knew if I passed that drive on to someone else or used myself IT WAS CLEAN.

If someone did pick up for parts being as you had a password and two being as It was most likely a mechanical HDD if someone was to use it they would probably format the drive.

Best advice moving forward that if you are going to be away from your computer for longer than normal is to pull the hard drives and keep control of them or store them some where safe.

 

[hei245]

It's a very tricky question to answer. I do agree that it's in a land fill or already shredded as scrap.

If this happened to me I would want to know one thing to give me piece of mind when it was placed for trash was it in the trash can or was it out with the trash sitting visible to the public.

I can't tell you how many times I have made a U-turn and hit a gold mine of curb parts.

I have gotten many hard drives years ago and password or not I always checked the drive for not so good saves. I did it to make sure I knew if I passed that drive on to someone else or used myself IT WAS CLEAN.

If someone did pick up for parts being as you had a password and two being as It was most likely a mechanical HDD if someone was to use it they would probably format the drive.

Best advice moving forward that if you are going to be away from your computer for longer than normal is to pull the hard drives and keep control of them or store them some where safe.

for the future what parts of the pc/desktop contain data do i need to take out for privacy reasons(so no one can access my info). I only know of the hard drive, is there something else like the monitor or ram?

 

[COLGeek]

for the future what parts of the pc/desktop contain data do i need to take out for privacy reasons(so no one can access my info). I only know of the hard drive, is there something else like the monitor or ram?

No. Unless there is also a SSD.

 

[hei245]

No. Unless there is also a SSD.

question but a pc only has either a hard drive or a ssd?(not both) Also really just the hard drive?

 

[COLGeek]

question but a pc only has either a hard drive or a ssd?(not both) Also really just the hard drive?

You can have both. Yes, HDD and/or SSD are all that store data.

Depending on the system, there can be multiples of each.

 

[35below0]

question but a pc only has either a hard drive or a ssd?(not both) Also really just the hard drive?

A motherboard will usually support 6 or 8 SATA HDDs or SSDs, even today. Same motherboard will have 3-4 NVMe (SSD) slots. Both can be extended, so if there's room in the case there might be 13 hard drives spinning and scratching and 7 SSDs of different shapes and sizes.

Of course, that is extreme and unneccessary but it is possible. It would be more practical to use fewer drives with higher capacity.

 

[Ubrales]

question but a pc only has either a hard drive or a ssd?(not both) Also really just the hard drive?

When RAID is used, the computer will have one SSD for the OS and multiple SSDs (or Hard drives) for the RAID storage for redundancy and a higher level of files security. When a computer is retired, it is imperative to remove all storage devices from the computer and properly deal with them or destroy them. If you choose to delete files, a simple delete (erase) is not sufficient; a DoD erase should be done (time consuming).