Am I being paranoid? What is going on?

I had to take my computer in to the store for repairs. I am scared that my information will get stolen, so I copied all of my documents on to a flash drive, deleted them, then emptied the trash can. I deleted my internet history, too. All of it, passwords, cookies, etc. from forever, not just the past hour or day. I was meticulous about this.

I got the computer back today. All of the files I deleted are back on the computer. Why? How? Did the people in the computer store do it? What is going on? Am I being paranoid? I was really, really careful!

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Deleting doesn’t actually delete from the harddrive. If you accidentally deleted something that shouldn’t have been deleted they may have had to restore files.

I would never trust my computer to a random store. Hard pass.

They shouldn’t have been anywhere near my files. They were repairing a hinge, for goodness’ sake!

Should I call the store and ask them about it?

I would if I were you. Talk to the manager. Or better yet, the owner.

don’t be paranoid…I’m sure there is a logical non dangerous reason your files were restored…don’t worry.

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I had files with resumes, budgets, and password protected documents in there. What if they got into my password protected documents? Those were really important.

I wouldn’t worry…you’d already know something was up if they abused your files…

One of the password protected documents had my email passwords in it. If they got that, I might not know it right away. A computer expert could get into that.

Then change your password just to be safe and relieve some anxiety about what if.

Should have thought of that. Thanks. I tend to panic before I can think straight.

I would call the owner and complain, they had no business snooping into your files

It’s a chain store, Microcenter, so I don’t think that I can call the owner. But I should be able to contact the service manager and find out what happened. I took it there because I have a warranty with them, so they did the work for free.

I would speak to their head office then, it is a serious breach of privacy and the service manager may be the one doing it

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A hardware repair?? As in the hinge that holds the screen to the keyboard?

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All of our information and even minds are exposed, but don’t be worried, nothing happens😉

Try to be normal and respect your self, let them know what is happening even in our genes,
Heart ace is with us,

Did you check recycle bin before taking it to repair.

For future reference (if you must have your computer repaired again), when you delete a file, even after you empty the Recycle bin, the contents of that file remain on your hard drive and can be recovered by anyone who has the right tools and a little luck.

In order to ensure that deleted information does not end up in the wrong hands, you will have to rely on special software that removes data securely and permanently. PrivaZer is one such tool - BleachBit as well.

BleachBit is a product that totally erases computer files. As a matter of fact, it’s what Hillary Clinton used to delete the emails she didn’t want anyone else to see from her computer server.

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Its easy, they did repair your computer and bring you a older version, they restored your pc…thats normal

Yeah, I let my laptop rot for over three years because I was afraid they’d plant something nasty on my computer. Just this year I got well enough to bring it to some random store to see if it was salvageable or get it to boot up. THey had to do a fresh install of windows because it was completely corrupted. It’s a bit different than your situation as I hadn’t used my computer in years and every piece of info was out of date. But still was a bit worrying even at the back of my mind.

If they did a cleaning or any other process that touches a component on the computer, they may have just turned it on and then maybe restored to a few days past to make sure it was working after they used it. That is a bit suspicious to me, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask them about it. Anyway, if you feel comfortable you ought to talk to a manager. Hope everything turns out alright, but in the meantime, change your passwords is a good tip.