Securing a unit before selling it?

I would not think people would consider a GPS as a source of private info and search it. Now there might be a nutcase or geek that would do it for fun but odds would be low. As for overwriting a HD, better then nothing, but still recoverable, I burn and then chop disk before throwing in trash as a HD is a ID theft dream source.

I agree, a GPS is not a device that anyone could get much personal data from. For sure I'd never overwrite the internal storage on the Nuvi.

If there are any concerns about privacy, I'd suggest you change your Home location to something other than your house (a local Starbuck's works), delete your favorites using the Delete Favorites function within the menu system, and delete all .gpx and .gpi files you have on the Nuvi. Then do a hard reset and you should be done. Doing multiple hard resets IMO does nothing more than the first one did.

One thing you MUST do before you sell the Nuvi is to login to your myGarmin.com account and deregister the device. The buyer can then register it in his/her name, update maps etc.

What kind of information can you get off a GPS?
Just change the home location and delete favorites.
I don't know anybody that has SSN or personal phone numbers stored on their GPS or why anybody would.

I take my old hard drives and mount a ¾ inch drill bit in the drill stand and make Swiss cheese, it also works on the prehistoric floppies, CD, DVD

You do that and I guarantee your information is safe.

Factory Reset.

It should be an option and it will reset the unit to the "fresh from Garmin" state.

I delete all the gpi and favorites. I don't worry about some one recovering names and addresses. All of those are in the phone book, including my own.
And with CD and DVD, I label them, "Charley Pride Greatest Hits" & toss them in the trash.

That depends on how you use it. I use it only to find places, so there is no trip logs showing repeated trips, pictures, and no home location was set.

However, if you like to keep trip logs, use photo navigation, or have created a home location. I would suggest secure the device before you sell it. It is not as much as dispose of a computer, but I'd rather not to leave any trace for people getting any idea.

So that's YOUR bank number on my Charley Pride CD!

I'm still using my 350, how much you want for the 1490T, send me an message.

I take my old hard-drives to the range and using one of my Model 1911 drill presses and a .45ACP bit, erase sectors and bytes from a safe distance, therapeutic and lots of fun at the same time.

I think as long as you do the factory reset and remove SD card, you should be able to sell it without any second thoughts
Good luck

We just bought a new Nüvi for our daughter, and I was wondering about that "detail" most of the night. And this morning as I take my cup of POI Factory, the answer is there. Are you a psychic or sumthin' ? Oh heck, won't be the first time POI Factory does that to me...

RE multiple resets -- u can't recover data from overwritten memory as u can from a magnetically written disk (Hard drive) so one reset does it -- ASSUMING the reset actually overwrites the file data.

Files on other memory - "camera" modules and flash drives - can b recovered after erasure. They just tag the file as erased and do not overwrite the file data.

How does a GPS reset work? I don't know.............

So if u have personal files on internal memory, the only way to know that it is clean is to do a full reformat so memory locations r overwritten.

I don't know how u would accomplish that.

You could always contact the manufacturer. They probably have had this question posed to them before and they may have a better suggestion for you.

Obviously the consensus seems to be just do a hard reset and be done with it. I figured as much, but figured I would ask, just in case.

For those who commented about hard drives, if a drive fails, I just take a hammer to it. A few good whacks and I know the glass platters inside have broken and its off to the recycler. If I am going to reuse the drive or sell or give away a working computer, I use an "NSA wipe" program to perform a multiple random write across the entire drive.

phillyguy19020, I haven't purchased a new unit yet, so this is still my main GPS. I haven't even thought about the sales price, if I do end up selling it.

spera, no problem. Glad I could help.

Thanks again to all who responded.