Asus repair question

[Guerrillakilla13]

Quick question, sorry if I'm in the wrong forum..

My nexus 7's calibration thing broke and long story short it won't automatically switch from portrait to landscape mode like it should. I'm about to send it in, but my question is will the Asus check my HDD for info or anything at anytime during the repair?? I have credit card and personal info on there I don't want them to bother. I did a factory reset on it but I know some info always stays. Do you guys think I'm safe? Thanks in advance

[Guerrillakilla13]

Anybody?

[KahanaReef]

I don't know about Asus in particular, but if I were to ever send in anything for repair, I would back up all my data and wipe it before sending it in A factory hard reset should take care of it.

[NE-Firebird]

IMHO, it's highly unlikely that the sensor broke. Are you sure you don't have the mode switch on? I keep mine locked. I'm not sure on the Nexus7 if it's a physical switch, or under "settings". It can be either in 4.x.

Also, there are apps that will lock the mode. And, there are apps that show the accelerometer data in real time.

[NE-Firebird]

In your case, make sure the screen rotation is not locked.


FYI:
Seven Google Nexus 7 tips - Guide - Tablets - CNET Asia

Unlock the screen rotation
By default, the screen of the Nexus 7 is locked into portrait mode, which is probably most appropriate for its 7-inch form factor. The screen orientation does change to the landscape mode in games. However, if you prefer the screen to rotate with the tablet orientation, you can unlock it just by pulling down the notification bar and clicking on the Lock icon beside Settings.

Click on the Lock icon beside the Settings icon to unlock the screen rotation.

[NE-Firebird]

Here's a free accelerometer checker app - no adds. Kinda cool.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...elerometerTest

[Guerrillakilla13]

Thanks for the replies! I did a factory reset before I sent it in, but you know I hear alot about how information stays on the drive regardless of what you do. Again I have some credit card and password info I don't want them to get, not to mention some pictures that were meant for my eyes only

I turned off the auto rotate lock and it still didn't fix anything. Also performed a factory reset and still it wouldn't work. I just assumed the gyroscope broke because a factory reset should have corrected the problem right?

[NE-Firebird]

Thanks for the replies! I did a factory reset before I sent it in, but you know I hear alot about how information stays on the drive regardless of what you do. Again I have some credit card and password info I don't want them to get, not to mention some pictures that were meant for my eyes only

I turned off the auto rotate lock and it still didn't fix anything. Also performed a factory reset and still it wouldn't work. I just assumed the gyroscope broke because a factory reset should have corrected the problem right?

In general, if you sent your device to a real place (Best Buy/Asus/etc), then your data is safe. If you sent it to "Joe'sLetMeFixYourTablet on ebay/web", then I'd be at least a little concerned.

ASUS/Best Buy/etc have very strict policies on the treatment of customer's data. Yes, there are some morons that violate that. But, how much do you think they can make doing that? Verses, getting fired and having on their company record they were fired for stealing customer data. When they go to get another job, the place will call up the previous places for recommendations and to verify why they left. Also, now, it costs ~$25 for any company to get a simple background check to see if a person was laid off or fired from their previous jobs.

So, Joe'sLetMeFixYourTablet.com won't give a flying ***** about trying to steal your data.
But, anyone working at a company knows the risks and likely has many posters reminding them over and over about the risks. Because, the company itself may be liable in some cases.

If you turned on the autorotate after you did a factory reset, then it should have worked.
Without downloading an accelerometer test app, it's hard to say what the problem was. It's very unlikely that just the accelerometer chip died. Possible, but very unlikely.

It's unlikely that doing a factory reset would over-written (fully erased) all of the stored data.
Doing an erase is similar to putting paper in the "recycle bin". That data is still there, but the paper (storage area) is labeled "available for use" (like for scrap paper from the recycle bin).

For the PC, there is a free program called eraser.
Eraser | Free Security & Utilities software downloads at SourceForge.net
Eraser


BTW, for SSDs (Solid State Drives), the issue of erased data is very complicated. IMHO, another reason why I say SSDs are often a POS. For a laptop, use Win8Pro, use bitlocker to encrypt the whole drive (and OS), and use a password to log on. Especially if you have an SSD. With an SSD, even a program like eraser will not help against! For a few generations, the SSDs have had an internal mapping table between logical and physical data block.

So, the OS may write your CC# to "data block 100", but the SSD would have it stored on "data block 220". Then, if you wanted to write over it, the SSD would mark block220 as "avail, but not blank", and write the data to an avail&blank data block like "block 333". Then, in the background, it would "make blank" block220.

SSDs and Flash have to have large data blocks (e.g. 64K) erased (made all "1's") before data can be written. Think of it like a pencil with an eraser and paper.

Brand New: Just write on the paper.
Write Line#1
Write Line#1

Want to replace the info in line#1? Well, you can:
A) Erase Line#1 with the eraser, then write over Line#1 with the pencil.
Or
B) Write new info into Line#3. Draw a line through Line#1. Then, erase Line#1 when you have the time.


Plus, SSDs have spare blocks that are not visible to the OS. This is done for write performance, write leveling, and to replace a bad block of internal flash.
Some SSD manufactures do have utilities to fully overwrite all of the internal data.


Long reply, but I hope useful info for now, and maybe later for other people.

[Guerrillakilla13]

What an awesome reply, and just what I was looking for! Thanks a lot man. After the factory reset, I made sure that the auto rotate was unlocked and ready to go but it still wasn't. I actually did use a gyroscope test or two and as far as I could see, it did work. But games and auto rotate were just very unresponsive. Oh yes, don't remember if I mentioned it, but games (like ones that require tilt to fly jets, or drive cars, or etc.) were unusable. On the jet game F18 carrier landing, I couldn't get my jet to go down, only up left and right. Whereas before it used to do anything I told it to do. I naturally assumed that the gyroscope failed..

Again I did a factory reset but I was mainly wondering if they'd have a real reason to look into my old HDD data that was erased from the factory reset (if it did that). I took the meaning of "entertainment device" a little too seriously plus the credit info and passwords are reallllyyyy things I don't want them to see. Man I wrote down everything on that thing!

I didn't mention this either but some photos and notes were stored on gallery and note lock applications. Don't know if that makes a difference..