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A computer wipe can be intentional or unintentional, and can be caused by user error or a virus. It can be fixed by a professional or recovery disc. Intentional wipes can improve performance or safeguard privacy. Simple wipes remove pointers to data, while verbose erases write zeros and ones. The motherboard may also contain data that can be wiped.
A computer wipe is when a vital, writable component of a computer system has been damaged or erased. This can be intentional by the user or unintentional. The end result of a computer wipe in either case is the same: the correct data must be copied to the system before the computer will work again.
An accidental computer wipe is not uncommon and can be caused by user error or a computer virus. With user error, a file vital to running the computer, such as an operating system file, is deleted. The deleted file prevents the computer from booting. This type of computer wipe can usually be fixed by a professional or through the use of a recovery disc, and much of the data stored on your computer may be recoverable.
More significant damage can occur if a computer virus causes the deletion. Depending on how malicious the computer virus is, small changes to files can occur that disable the computer, or huge chunks of data can be deleted. Damage caused by a virus usually requires running an antivirus tool or malicious software removal kit on your system before new data can be safely copied.
An intentional computer wipe occurs when the data needed to run the computer is deleted on purpose. There can be many reasons for wiping your computer: Deleting all information on your hard drive and reinstalling your operating system can make systems compromised by spyware run faster; deleting and reinstalling may allow new operating system components to run more smoothly; and deleting information from a computer can safeguard privacy if the computer changes ownership.
Most computer wipes focus on information on a computer’s hard drive and can be simple or detailed. Simple wipes only remove pointers to data on the drive; the information is still there, but it can’t be accessed via basic commands. Programs can be used to partially or completely recover data that has been deleted in this way. With a verbose erase, a series of zeros and ones are written to the data. Recovering data that has been erased this way is considered extremely difficult if not impossible.
While hard drives are the most common part of a computer that can be erased, they’re not the only part. The motherboard, for example, often contains data that is considered safe but not completely read-only. Deleting this data would shut down the computer, but all information on the hard drive would still be recoverable.
