Clearing personal info from a computer permanently

Dostoevsky

Hi,

I'm selling my computer and I'm obviously taking all my information from it beforehand.

However, is there a way where the new user cannot do a system restore or something else and retrieve that personal info after I have sold her/him the computer? What is the best way to clear my personal info from this computer permanently?

Thanks a million.

kevthegaff

i say formatting the c drive and reinstalling windows afresh, you can do this with your windows disk:)

LimerickSports

i think you will have to smash up your hard drive this is where all the memory is stored, and can be retrieved if the people you sell it to have some program to retrieve the information etc etc.

Washout

LimerickSports wrote: »

i think you will have to smash up your hard drive this is where all the memory is stored, and can be retrieved if the people you sell it to have some program to retrieve the information etc etc.

drill wholes through HD

Sup08

Replace the HDD with a new and keep all your files on the old on as a back-up. Or you can us a formating tool that writes to the drive to clear it.

Look at this article

http://www.wikihow.com/Permanently-Erase-Data-Off-a-Hard-Drive

RUCKING FETARD

http://www.anti-forensics.com/disk-wiping-one-pass-is-enough-part-2-this-time-with-screenshots

Defiler Of The Coffin

kevthegaff wrote: »

i say formatting the c drive and reinstalling windows afresh, you can do this with your windows disk:)

This isn't going to help the OP, it's still possible to recover files after a reformat.

IMO best solution for the OP is DBAN, it will securely wipe all information from the disk. I use it whenever I'm getting rid of PCs and don't want to keep the disk.

http://www.dban.org/

mach1982

Remove the hard drive

ED E

A deep format, done properly makes your data practically non-retrievable. Theoretically if they had a few K to drop on recovery they could get a small amount back, but come on, who buying a second hand old PC will do this?

Format+10-15 alternating passes overwriting the drive, be grand.