Selling a PC. How do I wipe it clean without fomating it?

frobisher

I don't want to format the drive but want to sell it on having safely wiped all my records and history on it. Any tips on doing this?

zod

for a start log in as administrator and delete your old profile .. right click my computer properties

Creamy Goodness

even if you format you don't get rid of your data it's still on the disk and gets overwritten when a new piece of data gets written on to the disk.

there are tools to completely wipe your hard drive (ie writes binary 0's to it etc.) but i can't recommend any i haven't used any but i'm sure someone will come along and tell you one. this method will take everything off the drive including the os.

frobisher

I know that if someone really wants to go digging they can find out whatever they want but I'm just looking for something that will just remove things to an acceptable consumer level, if you get my meaning.

keen

frobisher wrote: »

I know that if someone really wants to go digging they can find out whatever they want but I'm just looking for something that will just remove things to an acceptable consumer level, if you get my meaning.

What do you want removed?

axer

I think you are supposed to zero write the harddrive 7 times to make it hard to recover but I think that is overkill if you dont have any sensitive information on your computer. It is very easy to retrieve what was deleted if you only delete the files and don't write over them so OP if you have any sensitive information then you should erase and possibly zero write the harddrive at least once.

Ghost Train

best way without wiping the OS I think is eraser, erases any unused disk space
so delete all you files, clear histories, cache etc, maybe create new admin profile and delete your old one as suggested above, then erase unused disk space to make sure what you deleted stays deleted
good faq and guide on the website too
http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/download.php

frobisher

keen wrote: »

What do you want removed?

Al Qaida training plans.

papu

frobisher wrote: »

Al Qaida training plans.

ahahahha

had the same issue with my rig and some missile launch codes.

what i'd say is find the windows key using somthing like jellybean key extractor , then just re-install windows ,

i dunno barring that , if its a oem pc try using a restore utility ?

qwertz

Use the forementioned tools or create a biggish zip or rar file and copy it numerous times until the disk is full. Then (obviously) delete these files.

ambro25

For "consumer level" cleanliness

First, google 'killdisk', download the freeware/demo version. Then

(i) Format your drive(s) fully (not the 'quick format' option)
(ii) Use killdisk to fill your drive with 0s (Do it twice if you're particularly paranoid )
(iii) Restore your PC to that minty fresh-from-the-factory install using the OEM disks (assuming you have any)

Capt'n Midnight

ambro25 wrote: »

For "consumer level" cleanliness

First, google 'killdisk', download the freeware/demo version. Then

(i) Format your drive(s) fully (not the 'quick format' option)
(ii) Use killdisk to fill your drive with 0s (Do it twice if you're particularly paranoid )
(iii) Restore your PC to that minty fresh-from-the-factory install using the OEM disks (assuming you have any)

writing all 1's or 0's to a drive is really all you need for consumer level,

But all 0's (or 1's) would probably allow the drive to be readable by the NSA, even if you did it twice. 1's won't become 0's when overwritten by 0's they might be 0.2's or 0.05's readable with high tech equipment

To go beyond that use kill disk or dban, if lazy use the autonuke option in dban

really you'd want a wipe utility that also arrives at each track from both directions as the heads don't always centre at the exact centre of a track. even then there are tricks involving heat to recover earlier levels of magnitism

pain in the A restoring a machine to factory condition , unless you have an image or restore partition , drivers and stuff need to be installed