How to erase everything on computer

spongebob89

If im sellin my laptop how can i completely wipe everything off it without a cd, anyone ?

whomitconcerns

delete the partitions. Do you mean everything or do you mean absolutely everything, ie windows, etc?

spongebob89

whomitconcerns wrote: »

delete the partitions. Do you mean everything or do you mean absolutely everything, ie windows, etc?

Just files and passwords and me admin account whats fastest beat way ?

howamidifferent

Remove the hard drive if you cant dban/wipe/nuke its contents.

spongebob89

howamidifferent wrote: »

Remove the hard drive if you cant dban/wipe/nuke its contents.

I dont have a disk though is there anything else that dose not require a disk

endacl

A big magnet.

whomitconcerns

if you bought it from an OEM then it probably has a recovery partition (may come up as an option when you boot).

This will re partition and reinstall windows (and remove everything else) basically will put it back where it started

Pocoyo

spongebob89 wrote: »

If im sellin my laptop how can i completely wipe everything off it without a cd, anyone ?

Hit the power button and then quickly hold 0 for 5 or 6 seconds.

beauf

howamidifferent wrote: »

Remove the hard drive if you cant dban/wipe/nuke its contents.

This is the only way to wipe it. Nothing else suggested wipes the the data.

whomitconcerns wrote: »

if you bought it from an OEM then it probably has a recovery partition (may come up as an option when you boot).

This will re partition and reinstall windows (and remove everything else) basically will put it back where it started

If theres no recovery partition, then you'd have to do what howamidifferent suggested.

If there is a recovery partition. And you restore from it, it won't delete your data. It would stop a casual user, but not someone from recovering data if they wanted to. You would need to run something like CCleaner and use the option wipe free space. That would permanently wipe data.

If you do a dban or ccleaner it will run for hours, probably all night, if not longer.

Saganist

Boot a live USB stick running any flavor of linux.

Once booted open a terminal window and run the following command.

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda

This will write a 0 on every bit of your drive, completely wiping all previous contents.

Make sure though that "/dev/sda" is your actual internal Hard Drive by running sudo fdisk -l first.

P.S. It may take quite a while depending on the size of your drive.

MonstaMash

http://eraser.heidi.ie/

spongebob89

Thanks everyone

Pocoyo

spongebob89 wrote: »

Thanks everyone

I gave you the easiest and safest way to do a reset on any machine yet you thanked the post above me. :mad:

beauf

Pocoyo wrote: »

I gave you the easiest and safest way to do a reset on any machine yet you thanked the post above me. :mad:

I don't think you understood the question or your own answer tbh.

Pocoyo

beauf wrote: »

I don't think you understood the question or your own answer tbh.

EXPLAIN?

Pocoyo

beauf wrote: »

I don't think you understood the question or your own answer tbh.

no reply

Thats what i thought,Troll.

beauf

Name calling why?

Explain how you think your answer erases data.

Pocoyo

beauf wrote: »

Name calling why?

Explain how you think your answer erases data.

it erases the hard drive and restores the computer back to factory settings. Now maybe a police forensic's team could find the memory data somewhere but i doubt the op's worried about that and if he is he may smash the computer into little pieces and burn the left overs.

beauf

If it erased the hard drive it would have no factory image left to restore from. The fact that it can restore the factory setting means it hasn't erased the hard drive. One thing contradicts the other.

I asked you to explain how it erases the data. Saying it erases the data, isn't explaining it. Erasing or deleting is term that is a misnomer in computing terms. Similarly factory resets doesn't remove data, and formatting the partition doesn't either. Its common college exercise to get students to recover from a disk that has supposedly been deleted. It relatively simple. No forensic team required. Smashing the computer has no effect either. As the data isn't stored permanently on any part (for example the memory) other than the hard disk.

So can you explain how pressing the power button erases the data. Also where you got this idea from.

spongebob89

Pocoyo wrote: »

I gave you the easiest and safest way to do a reset on any machine yet you thanked the post above me. :mad:

I said thanks EVERYONE

always great support in the IT forums

Pocoyo

beauf wrote: »

If it erased the hard drive it would have no factory image left to restore from. The fact that it can restore the factory setting means it hasn't erased the hard drive. One thing contradicts the other.

I asked you to explain how it erases the data. Saying it erases the data, isn't explaining it. Erasing or deleting is term that is a misnomer in computing terms. Similarly factory resets doesn't remove data, and formatting the partition doesn't either. Its common college exercise to get students to recover from a disk that has supposedly been deleted. It relatively simple. No forensic team required. Smashing the computer has no effect either. As the data isn't stored permanently on any part (for example the memory) other than the hard disk.

So can you explain how pressing the power button erases the data. Also where you got this idea from.

Firstly you can never truly erase memory from the computer,I would of thought you would of known that especially with your talk of ''common college exercises'' in IT And secondly i cant remember where i picked the idea up,But your welcome to try it yourself.

Saganist

Pocoyo wrote: »

Firstly you can never truly erase memory from the computer.

What do you mean by this ? Your terminology isn't great.

Pocoyo

Saganist wrote: »

What do you mean by this ? Your terminology isn't great.

Excuse my terminology but i think you know what i mean,And if you dont just go with want you want to believe it will be more entertaining that way.

Saganist

Pocoyo wrote: »

Excuse my terminology but i think you know what i mean,And if you dont just go with want you want to believe it will be more entertaining that way.

Wow. Someone has a chip on their shoulder. :pac:

I don't really know what you mean. When someone says memory to me I think of RAM. Which is volatile. i.e. Its wiped when it loses power.

Storage on the other hand, i.e. a hard drive is where data is written and kept. Removing the data by overwriting it with 0's or random data ( /dev/random ) is an effective way of totally removing previous data prior to reformatting and writing new data to the drive.

Pocoyo

1) Hold down the power button for 10 (ten) seconds to switch off your machine.

Please note: Holding down the power button on the machine forces it to switch off. Any unsaved data will be lost.

2) Press and hold the 0 (zero) key and at the same time, tap the power button once to switch on your computer.

3) When the machine Starts beeping; release the 0 key.

4) When prompted by the warning screen; select Yes to continue with the system recovery.

5) Select Recovery of Factory Default Software; click Next.

6) Select Recover to out-of-box state. Click Next again.

7) Click Next to Start recovery.

A simple method of deleting personal information from a computer perfect if you wish to sell or give away your computer.

King of Pork

Smash the fook out of it with a sledge then burn it in a coal fire. Deposit what's left in a fast flowing river. That's what I do when I need to cover my tracks.

beauf

He can't explain it. its not important, other than it misleads others. You can wipe a disk so the data is unrecoverable. The explanation is simple. You overwrite the data with other data. Which is why the terms erase and delete are misnomers. You can overwrite it with 0's or any data. Which is that disk wiping tools do. But it takes a long time. System restore, or formatting doesn't do this. So if you do a system restore, or re-install the OS, you need to overwrite the free space that's left. Takes a long time though. If its 200GB disk its like copying 200GB of files.

There's less potential of error with system/recovery CD/DVD disks so its easier. With the recovery partition someone who is not that technical runs the risk of deleting or damaging it, and losing their OS.

Saganist

Pocoyo wrote: »

1) Hold down the power button for 10 (ten) seconds to switch off your machine.

Please note: Holding down the power button on the machine forces it to switch off. Any unsaved data will be lost.

2) Press and hold the 0 (zero) key and at the same time, tap the power button once to switch on your computer.

3) When the machine Starts beeping; release the 0 key.

4) When prompted by the warning screen; select Yes to continue with the system recovery.

5) Select Recovery of Factory Default Software; click Next.

6) Select Recover to out-of-box state. Click Next again.

7) Click Next to Start recovery.

A simple method of deleting personal information from a computer perfect if you wish to sell or give away your computer.

Yes. But your personal data is still on the drive. I think thats what most people on this thread is trying to tell you.

If you did that and then gave me the computer and I wanted to see what was left on the drive I could easily restore a lot of the old data.

HTH.

beauf

Pocoyo wrote: »

...A simple method of deleting personal information from a computer perfect if you wish to sell or give away your computer.

Except it doesn't delete the data. So its doesn't do what the OP asked at all.

Pocoyo

Saganist wrote: »

Yes. But your personal data is still on the drive. I think thats what most people on this thread is trying to tell you.

If you did that and then gave me the computer and I wanted to see what was left on the drive I could easily restore a lot of the old data.

HTH.

Some ones got a chip on their shoulder. :rolleyes:

Saganist

Pocoyo wrote: »

Some ones got a chip on their shoulder. :rolleyes:

Not at all. Just trying to explain to you the difference in reformatting a drive for new use and actually overwriting all the existing data so that it can't be recovered if given to someone else, which is what the OP asked. :cool:

beauf

Exactly.

KERSPLAT!

Pocoyo wrote: »

Some ones got a chip on their shoulder. :rolleyes:

So does your way work or not?

Pocoyo

KERSPLAT! wrote: »

So does your way work or not?

Perfectly it works as wel as anything else recommended here, Only its easier to employ.

Saganist

Pocoyo wrote: »

Perfectly it works as wel as anything else recommended here, Only its easier to employ.

Except it wasn't what the OP asked.

Pocoyo

Saganist wrote: »

Except it wasn't what the OP asked.

Stop bullying me please.

beauf

Its simply restores from the recovery partition if you have one configured. If you don't have one it doesn't even give you that option.

Either way system restore doesn't prevent your data from being recovered.

pah

Pocoyo wrote: »

Hit the power button and then quickly hold 0 for 5 or 6 seconds.

Not all machines are set up in this way with a recovery partition so it may not work for the OP

Pocoyo wrote: »

I gave you the easiest and safest way to do a reset on any machine yet you thanked the post above me. :mad:

Childish much?

Pocoyo wrote: »

it erases the hard drive and restores the computer back to factory settings. Now maybe a police forensic's team could find the memory data somewhere but i doubt the op's worried about that and if he is he may smash the computer into little pieces and burn the left overs.

It erases Nothing. It reinstalls windows to the hard drive and assigns all other drive space as unallocated space. A lot of data remains in this space and some simple forensic tools can recover that data. It's quite obvious that you are unfamiliar with the process of writing/overwriting data and how things are deleted and erased in different scenarios.

If somebody wanted a factory reset on their machine and it was setup for the shortcuts you have outlined then your method would be the fastest and easiest method. I have thanked your original post so that you may feel better about yourself and for your wonderful contribution.