According to the computing magazine Which?, the only way to be certain that criminals won’t get their hands on vital data from your old computer hard drive is to smash it to pieces with a hammer.
Which? magazine managed to recover 22,000 files from computers sold on eBay, files the owners thought had been permanently deleted.
Criminals apparently source old computers from auction sites, small ads and even rubbish tips, just to get their hands on any personal information that might still be hanging around.
There is plenty of freely available software to recover deleted files from computers, so the only way to be 100% sure you won’t get caught out, according to Which?, is to grab the trusty hammer.