A sketchy laptop repair put me in a tough spot
A customer brought in an old laptop that wouldn't boot, and the fix was simple, a dead hard drive. I put in a new SSD, installed a fresh OS, and was about to wipe the old drive as per my usual routine. But I always do a quick check of the old drive first, just in case there are personal photos or documents the customer forgot about. This time, I found a hidden folder with some files that looked very much like pirated software keys, and worse, a few things that seemed like they could be stolen personal data from other people. The guy was just some regular dad, not a tech person at all. My gut said he probably bought the laptop used and had no idea, but I still had to figure out what to do with what I found. I ended up wiping the drive completely and told him the old drive was totally dead and unrecoverable, which was mostly true. It felt like the right call to not stir up trouble for maybe no reason, but it also felt like I was covering something up, and that still bugs me.