Is it really possible to recover files after erasing SSD?

[Les_Paul]

Hi guys,

I sold my 2013 MacBook Pro recently and before selling it and shipping it, I erased the SSD in Disk Utility and made a fresh install of High Sierra.

After meeting the buyer I started thinking if they would maliciously be able to retrieve the old files, and realised I only performed the fast erase. 

Probably just overthinking now, but is it actually possible to still restore old files after wiping? 

[Dedayog]

5 minutes ago, Les_Paul said:

Hi guys,

I sold my 2013 MacBook Pro recently and before selling it and shipping it, I erased the SSD in Disk Utility and made a fresh install of High Sierra.

After meeting the buyer I started thinking if they would maliciously be able to retrieve the old files, and realised I only performed the fast erase. 

Probably just overthinking now, but is it actually possible to still restore old files after wiping? 

Was there anything really bad on it that would affect you?  Anything from porn to resume copies is useless, or did you save your logins and passwords on a text file on the C:\ drive? 

 

I have no idea what's recoverable but I assume a company could do it with commercial software and time.  Random people?  Probably cost prohibitive.  But I don't know.

[Eigenvektor]

14 minutes ago, Les_Paul said:

Probably just overthinking now, but is it actually possible to still restore old files after wiping? 

Depends. If you delete a file it is typically only marked as deleted (i.e. the file system entry is gone), but the data is still there. In this case data can be recovered, but not easily. If you use something like secure erase it is overwritten (possibly multiple times)

 

Since you reinstalled the OS there's a good chance that the new install has overwritten large portions of the data that was previously there. If a file is deleted the space is seen as free, so new data may be put into the same position, overwriting what was there before.

 

Your typical user usually doesn't have the means to restore deleted files, nor would they bother unless they suspect you have something really interesting on there.

[Les_Paul]

Nope there is no porn in it, I'm just concerned about bank details, or bank statements, copy of my ID and passwords that might have left a trace from GMail or Safari

[mariushm]

If the erase process was done in seconds, then there's a chance the data is still there.

If the erase process took a few minutes, then you're fine.  That would be the equivalent of writing zeroes or random data over all the flash memory cells, making recovery nearly impossible.

 

[Dedayog]

10 minutes ago, Les_Paul said:

Nope there is no porn in it, I'm just concerned about bank details, or bank statements, copy of my ID and passwords that might have left a trace from GMail or Safari

Take a second and think about what you wrote and how it can be used.  Bank statements don't normally contain the bank account number, but even if they do any online payment made fraudulently is easily refuted by IP address or your bank may just take your word for it these days.  Besides, my work sends wiring instructions all over the place, so their bank account numbers are in the ether all over.  No worries.

 

Unless there is a bank activity you don't want people to know about, like that $4k mail order bride thing I talked you into?  You're good.

 

ID and passport number?  Useless info.  Hell, even LifeLock guy posts his SSN# all over the place.

 

Nothing you've mentioned can be used against you that can't be undone, and even more so... it's all information someone could get that wanted it anyway.

 

There really isn't much that is private anymore.