Question How to prepare my pc before leaving it at the local electronics shop for cleaning

[Taro]

Just what the title says. I need to get my pc cleaned and therefore im willing to bring it to the local electronics shop but im concerned that they might take a look at my data. I figured that i'd take out the hard drive and the ssd before bringing the pc there, is that enough or do i take out the ram too? Might be a stupid question for you guys but i really have no idea what to do.

 

[USAFRet]

Take it to a shop for 'cleaning'? WHY?

If you are competent enough to remove the drives, you are competent enough to blow the dust out.

 

[Taro]

Take it to a shop for 'cleaning'? WHY?

If you are competent enough to remove the drives, you are competent enough to blow the dust out.

Well i do know how to clean it but i simply have no time to do it

 

[USAFRet]

But no, you do not have to remove the RAM. That is volatile memory.
Power OFF = no data retained.

 

[Darkbreeze]

It takes longer to remove the drives than it does to blow out the dust, so yeah, if you have time to take out the drives, you have time to clean it yourself. J.H.C

 

[Hydroshot]

you mean like physically cleaned or the hard drive cleaned ?

 

[Darkbreeze]

He means the inside of the case, CPU cooler, fans, chassis internal cleaned, not hard drive cleaned. He specifically mentioned removing the drives because he's worried about them accessing his personal information, which has to make you wonder just what, exactly, is on there that they are worried about somebody else seeing?

 

[Karadjgne]

A quick clean takes 5 minutes. And a can of compressed air. An a*al retentive clean can take over an hour.

A pc shop will charge you a bench fee for a quickie clean, usually that's shop rates of @ $100 for an hour or any part thereof. So a totally thorough clean can cost as much as $200 (ish) depending on how unscrupulous the shop is.

Just password protect your windows, they'd have to crack that in order to read any user data. And honestly there's no need to even plug it in and turn it on.

 

[popatim]

Password protecting your windows (account I assume) does nothing about the data on the drives. Simply taking ownership of the users folder will get you access to all of it.