Stolen Laptop

tomahawkeer

Well, sometime between friday evening, and early this morning, someone broke into my car, and stole my work laptop. Ive reported it to the police, and ive checked with several local pawn shops, but other than that, I have a feeling ill never see it again. Does anyone have any tips in trying to recover it? Its all of 3 months old :-\ Go figure! Other more important / personal things were stolen, things that cant be replaced, and

I just keep thinking that if I can track down the laptop, I can track down the other stuff. The laptop can be replaced. Ultrasound pictures, and memories from a miscarried baby cannot

Devilsbane

Where I work laptops go missing every now and then and it isn't a huge deal. So at least you can probably take getting fired off of your mind.

The personal stuff is the hard stuff. I don't know if there is much you can do about that. I don't want to be an ass, but this is why things need to be backed up (and I am guilty of this too, just so far I've been lucky).

I wish you the best in finding your stuff.

tomahawkeer

There was nothing on the laptop itself, that wasn't backed up or cannot be replaced. There were other items in my car (non-related to it) that were taken, for unknown reasons. Thats my biggest complaint.

wedge1988

Would be great if people had the opportunity to turn a tracking feature on that tracks mac addresses over the net.

Mojo_666

At the risk of sounding a little harsh an uncaring, you probably won't ever see it again ever so strat trying to get over it. I would put money on it having a nice new home already. High value electical items are pretty much an immediate write off as far as the police go, they won't even bother looking for it, if they chance across it you might get it back if it is tagged etc, but even then the chances are slim.

Devilsbane

Where I was going to school, some school computers showed up about a year after they went missing. They were sold off and someone was trying to login and couldn't figure out what the domain thing was and contacted the school to get the password. lol

slinuxuzer

If you can track down / have the serial numbers or service tag, report it stolen to the manufacturor and retailer so at least that might prevent them from getting service on it.

silverspot

Our work laptops have a lojack software called Computrace. It can track locations, etc. The cool thing about it is that you can send a "brick" command that bricks the HDD. Even when you install a new OS on it, reboot, no OS.

JockVSJock

I would never leave anything valuable like that in a car. If I did, I would try to put it out of sight.

Was the hard disk encrypted?

Lee H

silverspot wrote: »

Our work laptops have a lojack software called Computrace. It can track locations, etc. The cool thing about it is that you can send a "brick" command that bricks the HDD. Even when you install a new OS on it, reboot, no OS.

Ive seen this also in a NHS Trust, soon as the stolen laptop goes on the internet the IP gets sent to Computrace and soon after that the police come knocking

also once its activated in the BIOS it cannot be turned off

jmritenour

tomahawkeer wrote: »

I just keep thinking that if I can track down the laptop, I can track down the other stuff. The laptop can be replaced. Ultrasound pictures, and memories from a miscarried baby cannot

Very sorry to hear that. You'll be in my thoughts and prayers, that these items will find their way back to you.

za3bour

Devilsbane wrote: »

Where I was going to school, some school computers showed up about a year after they went missing. They were sold off and someone was trying to login and couldn't figure out what the domain thing was and contacted the school to get the password. lol

Are you kidding me

Devilsbane

Lee H wrote: »

Ive seen this also in a NHS Trust, soon as the stolen laptop goes on the internet the IP gets sent to Computrace and soon after that the police come knocking

also once its activated in the BIOS it cannot be turned off

A lot of companies determine this to not be profitable. Lets say your laptops cost $1000. If 1 of these is lost each month, that is $12,000 each year.

If the software is $50 for each computer you put it on, and you have 500 laptops. That is $25,000. So as far as money goes, it pays to just write off the lost laptops. But if the laptop contains confidential information that could cost your company millions, then it becomes a good move again.

za3bour wrote: »

Are you kidding me

Nope, school called the police and they found out who he bought the computer from and charged that person with multiple counts of theft.

egb893

That sucks!! Sorry to hear about the personal stuff you lost. Hopefully somehow they find their way back to you. Criminals are idiots and sometimes what they take doesn’t make sense. In high school someone broke into my car and stole my lettermans jacket that had my name stitched into it in huge letters! What they wanted it for I will never know.

tomahawkeer

There wasn't any important data on it thank god. If somebody knew what they were doing, they could extract some usernames / passwords from it, but ive already changed all of them. Who ever did it just got a free laptop out of the deal, and better hope they never try to get service on it, because dell has already flagged it, and if someone does, the police will show up.

Ive been looking for the personal stuff around our neighborhood, thinking if they looked through it, and realized it was nothing of value, that maybe they just dumped it someplace, but no luck :-\

Lesson learned though. Ill never leave my laptop in my car for an extended time period. Regardless of the time that I have to be get to someplace.