Question Wiping hard drive really necessary?

shafe88

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Jul 6, 2010
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Really necessary to wipe my hard drive clean with dban, and reinstall everything? Received a strange email(Said Xfinity, than said unknown, than it disappeared), and a fried said I needed to wipe my hard drive with dban and reinstall everything, they claimed I can get viruses that most software can't detect and that their are always new viruses that can't be caught. I never opened the email, and did a full system scan with Norton, Malewarebytes and superantispyware and they all found nothing except a few tracking cookies.
 
It's more than likely not necessary. If people wiped and reinstalled their OS every time they received a suspicious email, they would be doing that constantly and not get anything done. : P The email may have just got removed by a spam filter or something.
 

Suiton20

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Feb 13, 2015
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I only do it for a clean install. I just use the windows 10 boot install cmd clean function so I don’t leave any stray files I moved. You don’t need special software to wipe. The cmd can simply zero out your drive but takes forever depending on size
 
In all honesty, you only need to do it if you are giving the drive away or selling it in a pc and that is to prevent anyone from getting to your saved info that was on the drive.

Good read: You Only Need to Wipe a Disk Once to Securely Erase It, anything beyond a 1-pass write (like a full format) would require forensics to recover.

Agree a malwarebytes scan in single user mode is usually more than sufficient unless the problem is really bad, e.g. persistent and always returning an no amout of scanning / removeing helps - even then a quick format is usually more than enough, no need to do a secure wipe in that case.
 

blahcomp222

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Mar 23, 2014
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Strangest thing is you said the email changed who it said it was from, and then ALSO disappeared on its own. You sure it didn't get automatically put in another folder like Spam folder?

If this was a legitimate email and not a popup or something, then I would be concerned if emails are changing who it says it was sent from. If not, and if it was a mistake to say it actually happened like this and was a popup or something while also in email, then nothing to worry about IMO if you've scanned clean and cleaned cache cookies etc.
 

shafe88

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Jul 6, 2010
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Strangest thing is you said the email changed who it said it was from, and then ALSO disappeared on its own. You sure it didn't get automatically put in another folder like Spam folder?

If this was a legitimate email and not a popup or something, then I would be concerned if emails are changing who it says it was sent from. If not, and if it was a mistake to say it actually happened like this and was a popup or something while also in email, then nothing to worry about IMO if you've scanned clean and cleaned cache cookies etc.
It's the only time it has happened. It was a legit email that was supposedly from Xfinity, clicked on another email, than when I went back to my list of emails, it said unknown instead of Xfinty, than it was gone as if I deleted it. Don't know what the subject of the email was, as it said no subject(after saying unknown). I also changed email password just to be safe. I've gotten a scam email before, but it was just an email that was forwarded from another comcast email account.