Erasing from laptop before selling ? .. advice please

pennymakespounds

have sold my laptop and ready to send to buyer .

I've been through everything and deleted old files etc ... but i've read before about programmes (free & downloadable hopefully ? !!)...that can be used to properly "erase" everything (but not operating system or programmes hopefully)

grateful for advice .

thanks

[Deleted User]

Best option is to erase the contents of the drive, then reinstall the operating system and drivers.

Use Dban to erase the drive, just one pass is enough, you don't need to go overboard on it.

pennymakespounds

don't want to go that far ..besides don't think i have the disks

basmic

http://www.heidi.ie/node/6

In the erasing options, choose to erase Free Disk Spack, Cluster Tip Area and Directory Entries. Then just create a new task to erase the unused space on the drive you want to erase.

johnmc

When you "delete" a file it isn't actually gone. You simply mark it with a tombstone. This tells the PC that the space can be used, although it prefers not to unless it runs out of space.

So a modern large hard drive contains loads of recoverable stuff. Sites such as www.pc-utilities.co.uk (the magazine) is full of FREEWARE that will allow you to recover files or to permanently delete them.

The best route, though, is to cleanly wipe the disk and reinstall just the OS.

pennymakespounds

johnmc .. link doesn't work ?

isofa

Plenty of other free recovery tools tool, like Recuva - www.recuva.com or the more technical and powerful TestDisk - http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

The only way to safely wipe a hard disc from general users is to use something like DBAN and even then forensic recovery is still possible!