Well it's more urgent to seize a Laptop from a 9 year old girl for pirating 2 songs than to go after such "good" PC-vendors. The good authorities alsways in favor of the strong ones. Another question: Does anybody want a 100% cow-meat lasagne with a big portion of horse-meat (tendered by trucking the horses all around Europe) in it? The latest fashion in european diskount-stores.
Pretty much expected for markets like Thailand, Russia, China etc. If someone buys a computer with pre-installed OS there and does not reformat and reinstall using sane media -> their own fault.
I've nothing against people using some "special" version privately. That differs for Business. If the company is using pirated Software for to do their business, means make money with it, they should pay it! All software I use in my own company and even on the computers my staff is using for service, is fully licensed. In fact I could claim the cost back over Tax reduction. That Thailand is well know for it's pirated software, which could be bought nearly everywhere, is well know. That also companies, means Computer retailers using to install pirated software on new computers, is also well know. Not so that computers from companies like HP, Lenovo, Acer and others delivering new and factory build computers already infected, is quite new for Thailand and happens only after the release of Windows 8. For me the use of original software only in my company is just a simple Must! Was getting investigated and rated several times from BSA (Business Software Alliance) and ICT Thailand (Ministry of Information and Technology)! If they come, they already having blank arrest warrants for in case of.....! And they're not leaving before they finish their Search!! As my House and Office are different places, I wasn't "visited" at my home (yet)! And in real, I was like to read that same also applies for countries like Germany!!
I have 2 Lenovo laptops & just gave one to my GF. They're made in China! & came w/ pre installed W7 & W8 OSs. Running AV scans (Avast & Malwarebytes) shows up nothing, don't think I will R&R the OSs *what do you think?
Well made in China does not mean they are "Pirated" and Assembled in USA does not mean they were made in the USA... Now also how do you know that "and does not reformat and reinstall using sane media" ... how can you say that unless you offer proof. sounds like I do buy almost all the parts to build my own Custom Systems... Every HDD that I install is also FORMATTED, by me, all USB devices given to Customers are also formatted by me prior to... I also purchase from "IMHO - honorable Retailers, but since I do not know where they purchase from..." I do thank the people for the provided info on "Pirated" Computers... in the past I have found purchasing Software from almost every source it is possible to obtain "Pirated" Software.... After reading most of the info - seems like "Might be impossible to insure your 100% FREE of stuff".
Everything's "made in China" these days. Not really what I meant. If you bought the laptops somewhere at a Shanghai pub at midnight with 50% discount, go reformat them.
In all fairness,regardless where or how you bought a device - do yourself a favour and format it. That is doubly true for newly built Windows 8 devices with lots of bloatware
Well, I've been reinstalling all laptops from scratch for years. Assumes you have the proper install media and drivers available, though. Got way more sucky process with W8 arrival and with loads of vendors' support going downhill extremely fast. Not to mention the "CoreSingleLanguage" nonsense.
in the past, you had to format any drive prior to using it. No way around. Nowadays, drives are offered perfectly pre-formated for instant use. Not a bad idea but there might be the hidden fraudsters toys. Agree: always format and then run it
Question: Do formatting or reformatting really destroy the data (if some already exist on brand new drives)? Answer: NO! Using to format a HDD or other Storage drive/media, didn't mean that the data are gone! Same applies for erasing data! Even if the Storage structure (Partitions) is deleted, the "old" data are still recoverable. There a lot Apps out in the wild which just doing the job to recover data from damaged, formatted and otherwise used methods of data deletion. Even wiping of an storage media didn't means that the data really are gone! But most likely it wouldn't be possible to get all data back after a HDD were wiped for several times! There 3 levels of HDD formatting: Low Level Format Partitioning High Level Format Low Level format is used for to create the physical structure of an HDD Partitioning is used to divide the HDD in into logical pieces, called Volumes High Level format defines the logical structures on the partition All that said, the only quite secure way to get an clean storage is to use HDD Wiping, not once, it would need several wipe cycles, which will need quite a bit of time! That also means that, if you didn't use the wiping method, your formatting just prepares the HDD with restructuring for a newly use without really get rid of the still existing old data!
But as long you don't use quick-format, the Malware / Virus / Root-Kit / Trojan etc. will be not active / harmful anymore afterwards.
Dude, you are just totally off-topic here. Noone is talking about "secure" deletion of whatever. We are talking about fresh reinstall of Windows, from original MS media, free of the OEM bloat and with sane HDD layout. Using those "secure delete" tools for this purpose, it will just take days for absolutely no reason. Code: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sd? bs=1M count=1 Disk wiped in a second, ready for fresh reinstall.
First of all, noone is discussing that here. Go read again. You fail. The HDD is just perfectly fine wiped in one second for the purpose discussed above, which is - fresh reinstall of Windows, from original MS media, free of the OEM bloat and with sane HDD layout.
True,though occasionally,it's a good idea to go the whole 9 yards and overwrite the disc too. Call it paranoia,but better safe than sorry . Bonus points for occasionally noticing disk-faults doing so. Edit: Btw,vym,I think you made his ignore list,I suggest you reciprocate. That way you'll stop getting worked up about off-topic bs and his obligatory 'a friend in the field told me so' proof
vymrdal: Nothing else expected than just the BS from you! You kind answers is telling who you are. Sorry for that. Seems to be you're the only person on the whole Internet and worldwide to be able to wipe a HDD while rewriting every bit, single sector and cluster of an HDD in just one (1) second! And that even well know and educated members of the Universities and other institutions like IT Forensic Laboratories and many others just telling the opposite! If you really were that serious human you claim and try to show, firstly you would accept that others may know a bit more than you, secondly you wouldn't show off with that insulting attitude all times someone didn't comply with you and thirdly you would be polite and gracious with your answers as normal human being's!
Once again, noone was talking about anything of what you are desperately trying to cram into my mouth. We have been discussing Windows reinstall from scratch. Noone needs any of your antiforensic nonsense for that and noone needs to spend days overwriting the whole HDD with random patterns repeatedly for that. Period. Couple of suggestions: If you have severe trouble understanding plain English, get a better translator than Bing. If you are paranoid about someone discovering your home pr0n collection on your HDD, physically destroying the drive is the only secure method to make recovery impossible. None of that is on topic here.