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AnchorDesk

David Coursey
The safe way to move your data to a new PC

David Coursey
Executive Editor, AnchorDesk
Friday, Dec. 19, 2003
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This column is about something that every reasonably advanced PC user faces at one time or another, an exercise that's fraught with peril.

My favorite migration tool
Detto's IntelliMover does a great job of moving all your data--not just what's in My Documents--from one PC to another.
I'M TALKING ABOUT the hand-me-down PC. Specifically: How do you make sure your PC is safe to hand down to someone else or perhaps to sell on eBay for a dollar or two? By "safe," I mean that all your personal data has been safely removed.

Real paranoiacs will remove the hard drive, run it past a demagnetizer, smash it with a 20-pound sledge hammer, and then soak the remains in circuit board etching solution before they pass along a PC. If you should actually catch somebody doing this, however, do us all a favor and notify Tom Ridge immediately.

If you'd rather preserve the drive, and don't care about the apps and operating system, there are a number of utilities that will completely wipe the drive. If you have a copy of Norton SystemWorks, for example, you can boot from the CD and use it to wipe the machine's hard drive.

Not all data wiping programs are created equal, however. Whatever app you use, try to make sure it makes three or more passes of the hard drive, replacing the old data with random characters each time. Such a hard drive will be clean enough for the Defense Department's purposes, whatever those might be.

BUT SUPPOSE you want to leave most or all of the applications and operating system in a condition that someone else could still use. And (to be even more realistic), let's say you'd also like to migrate all your data and settings from the old machine to one you've just purchased or received as a holiday present.

To take care of that migration, let me tell you about a piece of software that I've used several times and have recommended to friends, all of whom have been happy with it. It's Detto Technologies' IntelliMover, and it moves your e-mail, files, folders, settings, pictures, dictionaries, MP3s, photos, Internet favorites, dial-up numbers, templates, shortcuts, and the other stuff that makes a PC a home from your old box to the new one.

Sure, it's possible to move all those components on your own, but you'll hate yourself later for having taken on the project. And, yes, Microsoft includes a File and Settings Transfer Wizard with Windows XP, which will move many things for free (as long as you have the right cable).

Neither of those solutions is nearly as complete as IntelliMover. It even comes with the right cables for connecting the old PC to the new one or will work over your home or small business network. Better, I think, to spend $49.95 on IntelliMover than save some money and take your chances.

THEN THERE'S Detto's IntelliMover PC Replacement Suite, which sounds like something Aaron Copland might have composed following "Appalachian Spring." But in this case, it simply means Detto has packaged IntelliMover with two other programs: one for backing up your new PC, and the other for scrubbing the old one before you part with it.

PrivacyExpert is the tool that lets you erase (or "scrub") your financial information, passwords, documents, and Internet files and settings from your machine automatically. It does this by cleaning out your My Documents folder and other places on your PC where personal information and Internet data reside.

After PrivacyExpert deletes files on your computer, it wipes the free space on the drive, including the remains of the files it's just deleted. Old hands know this, but in case you don't, let me mention that deleting a file doesn't really remove it from your hard drive. Most anyone can recover data from a hard drive that appears to be empty unless you've used a program to scrub the drive after deleting the files.

PrivacyExpert does just that, and lets you specify just how clean you want the drive to be, including standards used by the U.S., German, and Russian governments.

IF YOU HAPPEN to be using a system with multiple users, like XP, you will need to run PrivacyExpert for each of the users to clean the system. I'd also recommend uninstalling any programs you want to remove before running PrivacyExpert. When I ran it on a machine here in the office, I also removed network and some other settings, as well as my e-mail files, just to make absolutely sure they were gone.

The PC Replacement Suite costs $79.95 and today is available only from Detto or Dell. No, you don't have to purchase a Dell computer to get the software. After the first of the year, the software will be available from other hardware vendors as well.

If you want to completely wipe the entire drive and don't need IntelliMover, Detto offers a standalone program, DriveCleanser for that purpose.

The program is a $29.95 download from Detto's Web site. (Make sure you make a copy after you download it so you don't accidentally scrub your only copy off a hard drive.)

ONE LAST THING: Suppose you don't have any use for the old machine and just want to scrub it and get rid of it. I've written about PC recycling programs in previous columns, but Detto has collected a bunch of relevant information onto a single page that includes a few options I haven't talked about.

Well, I see the laptop I am about to send back to a vendor is finished with the triple, Department of Defense-strength scrubbing I had PrivacyExpert do. Sure, it took a few hours, but now I don't have to worry about what someone might do with the data that otherwise would have remained on the surface of my hard drive. Use this software--or its cousin DriveCleanser--and you won't have to worry, either. Fewer worries for the holidays is always, as that woman who's awaiting trial might say, "a good thing."

What do you think? How do you migrate data from one PC to another? What do you do with your old PCs? TalkBack to me below!

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