Re: Best Buy - extended warranty

In fact I think I would have to mail the computer
someplace if I need to fix it under warranty.

This is one reason why I won't buy an extended warranty for a
computer. Cleaning my data off a broken computer is likely
impossible without repairing it first, so the warranty will likely
never get used.

If you encrypt the data you care about, you dont need to clean it.
Or just keep the data you care about on a pair of removable USB sticks etc.

That's insufficient, unless you've got a way to put the entire
system on a pair of removable USB sticks (no hard disk).

That is just plain wrong. You dont care if the repair operation gets the OS etc.

There's plenty of touchy stuff in the registry, including my login
password. Now, how do I move *just* the registry to a USB stick
and still be able to boot?

The only thing that matters is the data you dont want them to get hold of.

But if you remove the hard disk you void the warranty.

No you dont.

Yes, you do, at least the last time I asked HP about it. You void
the warranty if you install an OS other than the one they preinstalled.
You void the warranty if you take that hard disk out, install another
hard disk, use it, and if the system breaks (something other than
the hard disk), put back the original hard disk and send it back
for warranty repair. They won't go for it (how they know you did
this is another issue - probably they have warranty seal stickers).
They specifically said that if you swap out the hard disk (for,
say, a larger one) even if you copy the same OS onto the new hard
disk, that this voids the warranty, and putting back the original
one won't help.

You can't be sure where an application is going to hide
sensitive data unencrypted while you're working on it.

Yes you can. You can check that before the system has failed
and ensure that that doesnt happen with the data you care about.

Really? How? Name all the places this application might put some
of your data, other than in files you specifically tell it to save
stuff: Microsoft Office. Remember that even a document title
("Proposed Merger with ...") or even a new company name ("Yahbing")
in a spell checker exception list can disclose insider stock trading
information.

Even if it deletes the data after you're working on it, it's
still in deleted sectors, and possibly swap/page space.

And its easy to check if that is happening and dont
use the data in a way that produces that effect.

That boils down to "don't use the data unencrypted *AT ALL*". Just
unencrypting the data for use (copying from USB stick to USB stick)
could end up with pieces of unencrypted data in swap/page space.
That's true of *any* program you run on Windows.

The point of having a computer is to be able to create, edit,
and use this data, not just using the computer as a carrying case
for a USB stick containing sensitive data.

.

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