Acer Recalls Notebook Computer Batteries

Acer Recalls Notebook Computer Batteries
Sony-made cells can cause overheating and possibly fires.

Cooley: Personal Data Concerns (Security Risks)
Recently, I made the decision to update to XP Service Pack 2. In hindsight, I'm not sure what compelled me to that course of action. Somebody at work (tech support call center) mentioned it, and then I recalled how I have avoided downloading it since it's release because I heard it can cause problems.

Anyway, I wake up in the morning to get ready for work, and I see a couple of error messages and I knew something was going to be screwed up. So in my haste, what's the first thing I do? Why, restart the computer of course - that way I can see as soon as possible what the new status of the machine was. Obviously, it wouldn't boot. All I had on me was a Dell XP Reinstallation CD, and after running through that it still failed to boot up.

Fast forward a bit, a friend at work said I should just bring it in and we could work on it during downtime. We took out the hard drive hooked it up with an IDE to USB cable and plugged it into his laptop. It wasn't being detected, so we took the hard drive to another guy there who had a much newer laptop, and it showed up under Disk Management, but as being unrecognized. The main goal for me was to save the data I have on there, and later try the regular Windows repair install, since I now had access to it through a co-worker.

The guy with the newer laptop had a program called Easy Recovery Pro, ran it and then I saw all of my C: folders. I was excited, and he asked if he wanted me to have him back it up to his 100 GB hard drive, and then we could try the Windows repair and worse comes to worse, we could format my original drive, reinstall a fresh Windows, and then copy over my files.

This guy seems pretty cool, the first week I was there he modded my PSP for me with CFW free of charge. So I thought, okay lets back this stuff up and see what we can do. Yesterday, after appending some Program Files directories that I also wanted to have added to the backup - we came to realize that we wouldn't be able to finish this process by the end of the work day. So I recommended that he just take my hard drive home and finish backing it up during that time. He already had half of my files on his laptop to begin with, so what's the big deal. I'm already in a compromising position (which I never have been before).

Anyway, in hindsight, it seems that I probably panicked a little too much after this unfortunate series of events began to unfold. My files were still there, and I probably could have just taken my tower and hard drive back home after that first day and said, "ok, I can back up/recover this stuff on my own." Although, only having one computer in my possession (no laptop or anything), made me feel that going through with relying on this other guy was the best option. I had this computer and hard drive since 2002, and it was my first real, decent personal computer. I have a lot of personal files on there, mainly all in the My Documents folder, but also have many Notepad files with personal information, log-ins, and then all of my favorites and cookies, etc.

Do you think I made a bad decision? Should I have just taken everything back once I saw my files there, before anything was backed up to his drive? As I said, he's a co-worker, and someone that I've been cool with, albeit have only known for a little less than a month now. I've always been super smart and cautious when it comes to security and not divulging personal stuff that I have stored on this well-worn hard drive. Now thoughts are racing through my head about my hard drive being at someone's else house for a weekend, and how even after we delete the folder that all of my hard drive is stored on within his laptop - he could still just as easily use that same recovery software to pull everything back up and I would never even know. And unless a low-level format were performed, my data would always be there somewhere forever.

I know people do this all the time, bring their computers to have data backed up and everything. But I always thought I was like a lot of you, I'd imagine - "No, I wouldn't do that. I'd just do it myself." Guaranteed to be safe and secure, the most important thing to keep in mind when dealing with personal data/information.

This is less of a technical question, and more of a request for honest opinions from people who are more well versed with these sort of situations than I am.

I'm going to be talking to the guy and be straight with him about my concern, and whether or not he looked around or grabbed anything off my drive for his own storage. But that can only accomplish so much. In the end, I guess it's better to do this sort of thing with someone you work with in the professional field, than some service with people you're paying that have no face or name.

Anyway, should I be worried the way I am? What would you recommend that I do?

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