data protection on hard drives (insurance)

[sports_brah]

Which insurer are you with? I've claimed for 2 different laptops with 2 different insurers and both claims have been quick and painless no trying to wiggle out of anything.

Endsleigh Student.

 

[sports_brah]

Not at all - if you'd said it was for business then sure, but work can mean almost anything. Working on my novel, working on my coursework, working on building up my forearms with porn, etc etc.

Some people are poets with words. Gardeners in the way they can twist the stems of meaing.

Well what's to say the laptop could have a broken HDD... Too late now... Next time you put a claim in don't forget to get your stuff off before sending... And wipe the files from it....

It's an SSD drive.

 

[Deleted member 77746]

Some people are poets with words. Gardeners in the way they can twist the stems of meaing.




It's an SSD drive.

That doesn't matter

 

[Neutralmilk]

My sister spilled water on her laptop and had to send it back for an insurance claim, she had recently adopted a wee boy and had pics of their first xmas together on the hard drive.

She just phoned the insurance company who sent the HDD back to her in the post. They will just want to see the whole thing intact to inspect it to make sure your claim is valid, after that they should send you the HDD back if you ask.

Just say you have imortant family photos or something on it that can't be replaced.

 

[cHk4]

Unrelated but I remember whenever people would bring in a phone for return or repair to a certain phone shop, the people working there would bluetooth off all the dodgy pics/videos... One of them was actually of the assistant manager, the video went viral around our local town and when the army boys would come in, they would look in shock when they saw her, when she disappeared they would say things like... "errrm was she in a xxx video?" Good times She did wonder why all of a sudden everyone in town became super friendly towards her.

 

[tom_e]

Endsleigh Student.

You'll be fine, I sent mine off to them after dropping it down the stairs. Cash was in my account pretty sharpish.

 

[sports_brah]

That doesn't matter

I have no idea what I'm doing dog.jpg

My sister spilled water on her laptop and had to send it back for an insurance claim, she had recently adopted a wee boy and had pics of their first xmas together on the hard drive.

She just phoned the insurance company who sent the HDD back to her in the post. They will just want to see the whole thing intact to inspect it to make sure your claim is valid, after that they should send you the HDD back if you ask.

Just say you have imortant family photos or something on it that can't be replaced.

Cool, when the claim has been approved, I might ask. It's an old SSD now, so hopefully they won't mind.

Unrelated but I remember whenever people would bring in a phone for return or repair to a certain phone shop, the people working there would bluetooth off all the dodgy pics/videos... One of them was actually of the assistant manager, the video went viral around our local town and when the army boys would come in, they would look in shock when they saw her, when she disappeared they would say things like... "errrm was she in a xxx video?" Good times She did wonder why all of a sudden everyone in town became super friendly towards her.

Just when I was getting piece of mind...

 

[sports_brah]

You'll be fine, I sent mine off to them after dropping it down the stairs. Cash was in my account pretty sharpish.

Did you have to haggle with them? Are they reasonable? I would just like another of the same model I had, but they are no longer made.

 

[tom_e]

Did you have to haggle with them? Are they reasonable? I would just like another of the same model I had, but they are no longer made.

Nope no haggling, they just sent me the amount it was insured for minus the excess.

 

[Name]

Laptop is now gone, so fingers crossed there isn't a perv at the other end.

Knew it, he's got nudes of his other half!

 

[Colbaker]

I used to work at one of these places your computers and laptops were sent by insurance companys to repair or replace.

As for someone looking at your data. This would be dependant on the technician, i personally never searched customers hard drives but i knew people who did, if the laptop is repaired then they will more than likely keep the hard drive as it is, if it is replaced then they may offer you the option to.have the hard.disk drive back, we used to also offer putting it in an external caddy, both would acrue a small price.

As for economical repair it used to.be if the cost was more than 65% more than the replacement then it would.be replacced, also if they are busy they may just replwce it as its quicker.

 

[darael]

I wouldn't be worried if it's just the generic porn stuff of you, your girlfriend or a folder full of naughties. They've probably seen dozens of computers with the same old. You could ask them not to erase the existing data on the harddrive.

All this could have been avoided if you just used a Linux live CD and moved your stuff to a USB stick. Remove girlfriends harddrive and replace with yours, boot off disk, move, then replace girlfriend's harddrive. Easy.

 

[Macky]

All this could have been avoided if you just used a Linux live CD and moved your stuff to a USB stick. Remove girlfriends harddrive and replace with yours, boot off disk, move, then replace girlfriend's harddrive. Easy.

Oh yes this sounds so quick and painless.

 

[darael]

Oh yes this sounds so quick and painless.

Not sure if your post was sarcastic or not, but the wink indicates it may well be.

Replacing a harddrive in a laptop is usually a case of removing 1 screw to remove the drive and perhaps another 4 screws to remove the cage from the drive itself. Seriously, it's very much painless.

 

[Mr Joshua]

Does this laptop contain your previous forum identity?

Why do you care, wannabe mod?

 

[Efour]

usb caddy > HDD/SSD > Delete or recover files.. or just remove the sodding drive saying it has all my personal data im trying to recover it.

 

[HardwareGeek]

Used to work for an insurance replacement company in the IT section, back then the script for the initial call told the customer to back up before sending the item in as if its was beyond economical repair it would not be sent back, you just get the new item. and the old item becomes property of the insurance company or replacement company.

Also if repaired they don't guarantee not to lose your data etc

Now you have sent it then all you can do is wait until they tell you if its going to be a repair or replacement.

If repair just hope no one copied all the smut from your drive

If replacement speak to them about sending you the hard drive back, make up some excuse about sentimental family pics or you want to destroy the drive yourself cos you have financial info on it etc

If the replacement company wont send the drive back speak to the insurance company and complain (if necessary threaten to cancel policies/never use them again etc), they will then instruct the replacement company to send the drive back.

You would be wise to request the drive back in any case even if you didn't have anything out of the ordinary on it tbh, we had a few cases of the old parts being sold on without being wiped, one was funny auto logging into the customers msn chat, they found out and sued the replacement company. They used to have an ebay shop to get rid of the old parts etc.


Now the serious advice is over .....

Unless you are particularly well endowed, the female lead is stunning or you are doing something really weird or lolworthy then its not likely to go viral imo

 

[Bobcat]

Replacing a harddrive in a laptop is usually a case of removing 1 screw to remove the drive and perhaps another 4 screws to remove the cage from the drive itself. Seriously, it's very much painless.

Not always, Dell for instance, you have to remove most if not all of the inner components just to get at the hard-drive, they make it as difficult as possible, it will very much depend on the make/model of laptop.

 

[Rozzy85]

This reminds me of the horrors when working in the Virgin Mobile Returns Dept. and testing phones. Either people didn't know how to remove the data from the phone or just didn't care. I still have nightmares from watching a home made video of a guy shoving something into is black hole until he knocked the phone of the bed side table.

 

[httk]

Not always, Dell for instance, you have to remove most if not all of the inner components just to get at the hard-drive, they make it as difficult as possible, it will very much depend on the make/model of laptop.

Yeah, I encountered one of those recently. I was livid. Been meaning to post on the forum for months to warn people off it. Years and years of a nice removeable tray and then someone realised that made home repair to easy and decided to put it under the keyboard!