confidential info on old harddrives.

If this is a ? thats been dealt with before I joined the list my apologies. I repeatedly come across personal and confidential information on discarded computers. I sit and shake my head in shock. Lawyers seem to be the worst. I have considered contacting the original owners and educating them about practicing safe hex but, especially in the case of lawyers and women, don't want to have them freak out and think I'm being weird and calling the police. On the other hand I feel that I should do something. In the end I just format the drives and forget about it. Has anyone experienced contacting an original owner? What was the response. This is something that I've not read about in the media as Y2K and Hackers get all the press but I suspect this is a bigger potential problem. Colan