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It's not out-of-box status as all my data is still on it and easily retrievable (even though it's been restored to "factory" settings).and what do you mean you restored to factory, but that wasn't a secure erase? the whole point of a reset is to wipe the device back to out-of-box status.
if you want a REAL secure wipe, drop it in a tub of water and then smash the every loving isht out of it. can't access what's destroyed, right? (by the way, that was sarcasm. don't do this unless you plan on just buying another one)
I rooted my phone (VGN) but wasn't going to bother doing that on the Nexus 7 if I didn't have to. How will that help with a secure erase?You may want to flash it with a custom ROM, maybe AOPK, "AOKP custom ROMs provide many customizations and reportedly render better performance compared to stock ROMs."
Here's how to do it:
How to flash the AOKP custom ROM to the Google Nexus 7 tablet
BTW, what do you mean by defective?
I had a feeling that was going to be the answerErase it, fill it with crap (movies, music...) erase again, repeat until paranoia settles.

Oh for Pete's sake. I did that.Perform a factory reset.
Reset your tablet to factory settings - Nexus Help
My encrypted passwordDB was on it. Given the very strong password and 128-bit AES (~trillion years to brute force), I guess I won't worry about it. Still, I might overwrite the device onceSever is correct.
There are ways to recover data from a wiped or fried hard drive so a mere wipe back to factory is not sufficient. But in most cases there is not much risk as it is unlikely that Google or the next owner will bother to recover your data.
It is not prudent to store confidential data on a mobile tablet since it can easily be stolen.
IMO, the N7 should primarily be used as an entertainment gadget.

Mine came with JB 4.1 installed, playing around trying to get the play store free credit, upgraded to 4.1.1
Did a factory reset, its still at 4.1.1
In my opinion a factory reset does not restore it to when it first came out of the box, am I right?
There's a security setting to encrypt all the user data. If you trust that, maybe encrypt all you data and THEN do a factory reset...
The encryption option doesn't write anything to blank areas of the partitions, it only encrypts the data that is on them already. So I don't think it will overwrite the data he's looking to have securely erased.
That would have worked if he had done it BEFORE he did a factory reset, though.
A factory reset does not, and never has, modified the operating system on the device. It wipes out all of the user data. That's it.
If you've upgraded, installed a custom OS, whatever - all of that remains. The only thing that gets deleted on a factory reset is user data.
I don't think that will help. The encryption option doesn't write anything to blank areas of the partitions, it only encrypts the data that is on them already. So I don't think it will overwrite the data he's looking to have securely erased.
That would have worked if he had done it BEFORE he did a factory reset, though.
I had that encryption enabled as well.
I had that encryption enabled as well. The more I think about it, the more I think I'm probably all set.