Preparing a Server for the Next User

Cadder · 17 Jun 2021 at 11:42

Hi All,

I have had my tower server for a few years. I bought it without a boot drive. I bought a 256GB SSD and installed Windows 10 on it and added a couple drives to complete the 4 storage disks, then configured the RAID (forget which).

I backed up all the information on an external drive, then used the "Reset This PC" Windows 10 tool to completely wipe everything on all drives and reinstall Windows 10 on it. I then set it up with a generic user but skipped all I could, all the time being disconnected from the internet.

My questions are:
1 - Will this process make it near impossible for anyone to recover the data on the storage disks?
2 - Depending on answer to Q1, should I change the RAID configuration to jumble everything, or is that not how it works?
3 - Is there anything illegal about selling a server with an unregistered copy of Windows 10 on it?
4 - Should I just remove the boot drive and sell it separately? If so, would simply disconnecting the boot drive be OK, or does it need doing in the software?

I am almost certain I paid for the license but of course it needs registering again and I don't want to connect it to the internet. I'm trying to keep it as vanilla as possible for the next user. I only registered a user on it to check the drives were empty and rename the storage drive configuration.

Any other comments on this that I have missed would be appreciated.

Deleted member 77746 · 17 Jun 2021 at 11:52

It's a little harder to recover data from SSDs but not impossible. When servers get sold they usually get sold without data drives for this reason.

My questions are:
1 - Will this process make it near impossible for anyone to recover the data on the storage disks?
Not impossible.

2 - Depending on answer to Q1, should I change the RAID configuration to jumble everything, or is that not how it works?
Nope

3 - Is there anything illegal about selling a server with an unregistered copy of Windows 10 on it?
Nope

4 - Should I just remove the boot drive and sell it separately? If so, would simply disconnecting the boot drive be OK, or does it need doing in the software?
If it's a server with sensitive data this is the first thing I would be doing.

Cadder · 17 Jun 2021 at 11:56

@Bouton Aide thank you for the quick and helpful response, I appreciate it. So I can just take the drives out and sell it as-is, without having to do anything in the BIOS or otherwise first?

Really appreciate your help, thank you.

Deleted member 77746 · 17 Jun 2021 at 12:17

Cadder said:
@Bouton Aide thank you for the quick and helpful response, I appreciate it. So I can just take the drives out and sell it as-is, without having to do anything in the BIOS or otherwise first?

Really appreciate your help, thank you.

Once the drives are out it would be the responsibility of the other person, is it a rack mount server?

Cadder · 17 Jun 2021 at 12:19

Bouton Aide said:
Once the drives are out it would be the responsibility of the other person, is it a rack mount server?

No it's a tower server, Dell PowerEdge T310.

Semple · 27 Jun 2021 at 01:24

You could just encrypt the data drives, and then wipe the disks. It'll take a bit of time to do a few, but it's the only absolute way you can ensure no data is recoverable.