Selling your old iPhone to make way for a 3G? Think twice!
If you’re trolling eBay and craigslist trying to find out what you can get for your old iPhone, you might want to take a moment to consider your file privacy.
There have been a series of discussions about file security on the iPhone since it was released. Apple’s restore (even the “Erase all content and settings”) feature on the iPhone does not actually delete the data, which means that is completely accessible to anyone with the proper software tools.
So what is an eager wannabe 3G iPhone owner to do?
1. Keep your old iPhone as a backup, and don’t sell it all.
2. Use the Erase all content and settings, and then completely fill the phone with mp3 files (legal ones of course.. ) and rinse and repeat x 3…
Once you have put a collection of useless data on the phone ( filling the memory completely is a vital step here) it will make retrieving any of the actual data that was on the phone originally a heck of a lot harder. However, it is still possible for the more zealous voyeur of your data.
The iPhone has been targeted more then other devices for this particular issue, but it should be noted that data recovery is almost always possible on any type of media. Remember the Columbia space shuttle the crashed, the drive was found in a dry lake bed and handed to a team at Kroll Ontrack about six months after the tragedy,, and yet… [ 99% data recovery ]
So, the lesson here is that unless you REALLY REALLY need the money, selling old hard drives, and other memory storage devices is not a good idea. As far as the iPhone goes, most of your buyers will not be doing the Columbia style data recovery, so step 2 should be sufficient to feel comfortable dumping it for the 3G.
Data Recovery is a very costly option that is why you should always check your storage media for any signs of wear and tear.,”;
data recovery is a very costly option, always make a regular backups.~’`
data recovery is very very expensive so do make regular backups of important files;*.
Finally, I located the information I was searching for. I have been doing research on this subject, and for two days I keep finding sites that are supposed to have what I’m looking for, only to be disappointed with the lack of what I had to have. I wish I would have found your website quicker! I had about 30% of what I was looking for and your web-site has that, and the rest of what I had to have to finish my research. Thank you and keep up the good work!
i had my 1TB hard drive crashed and data recovery was horrendously expensive~.;