deleting data?

zweton

Hi,

Selling my laptop and want to rid of all data on the hard drive without having to reinstall windows 7. Any good software for this?

Thanks

mp22

Spybot-search and destroy has a file shredder and its free.

zweton

mp22 wrote: »

Spybot-search and destroy has a file shredder and its free.

What files should i add to shred? Wont allow me to add C: drive.
Where is the most important info kept?

demanufactured

Most files will be in your user folder.
Brst thing to do would be to create a new user account and name it USER.
Then delete everything to do with your own account, including the account itself from user accounts in control panel.
Then clean up the pc using Ccleaner.
Uninstall any programs you dont want on it.

Capt'n Midnight

you can't fully clean windows.

simple as.

=============================

you'll have to unistall all the apps you don't have licenses for

setup up a new admin user, use it to delete all the users, (if you have been using The administrator that's not so easy)

use ccleaner to remove all it can find

turn off pagefile and hibernation file

use something like sdelete to wipe free space



you'll still have fragments of your data all over the place, especially in the registry , the joy of closed source means you'll never know all the places where stuff has been "temporary save" by apps

ger664

+1 on above

Re installing Windows 7 after doing a low level format would be quicker and more secure then arsing around trying to delete all data and other info.

Also your laptop may have a hidden factory restore partition ? What make is it ?