I'm planning to take my desktop for some cleaning because the fans have been really loud lately. It has five storage drives, including the one with the operating system. I'm wondering if just removing all the storage drives will be sufficient to keep my files and personal information safe from any potential snooping by the repair technician. I've heard that things can be hidden in the BIOS, but is it likely that a repairman would go that far?
3 Answers
If your data isn’t of interest to high-level threats, just removing the drives should do the trick. Just make sure to decrypt any BitLocker-encrypted drives before cleaning, in case the BIOS is updated and the TPM gets reset. To be extra safe, you might want to encrypt sensitive files separately.
Honestly, it’s best not to hand over your PC to anyone without having removed the drives. Always better safe than sorry! If you can, just clean the dust yourself using a blower. You never know what could happen when someone else has access to your machine.
Generally, removing your drives is a good step to keep your data safe. However, there have been rare instances where malware can embed itself in the firmware, so that’s something to keep in mind. Overall, though, taking out your drives should be safe enough.
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