PSA: Scrub your gaming console's memory before selling

[wraggster]

Usually, when we label a headline as a "PSA," it's in a joking manner; say, "PSA: Bacon is delicious, good for you." However, we're pretty sure this post constitutes a legitimate public service announcement: Ars Technica recently published an article that the frequent trade-in-ers among us should probably read. In short, if you're not erasing your consoles' hard drives before trading them in, there's a pretty good chance you could be robbed blind. (Or at least robbed astigmatic.)

Seriously, if you're thinking about trading in or pawning one of your gaming consoles sometime soon, follow the helpful tips provided in the Ars piece. They'll ensure that you don't accidentally leave your credit card information in the system's memory for its next owner to exploit. You also don't want to leave your Avatar, Mii or PlayStation Home account on there, either. That's how e-stalkers get started, donchaknow.

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/01/21/ps...efore-selling/

[darkdex52]

HA! A simple format won't do. You need to completely overwrite the HDD atleast 3 times to be safe noone could access your data.

[Shrygue]

One could try using DBAN, a program that run off a diskette or other removable media at computer boot time. It'll be able to wipe clean a hard drive, it's even got the Gutmann method where it overwrites data 35 times.