wipeing a hard drive

madlyn

i'm thinking of changing from a desktop to a laptop PC, and would ideally like to sell on my desk top.
is there a way of cleaning the hard drive/memory of all personall information?

fermi

www.dban.org

John_Gray

madlyn wrote: »

i'm thinking of changing from a desktop to a laptop PC, and would ideally like to sell on my desk top.
is there a way of cleaning the hard drive/memory of all personal information?

Not easily, because the removal mechanism would have to distinguish between user files and operating system files, and just wipe the former.

If you want to clean absolutely everything from the hard disk, then the suggested DBAN will do it very well - but the person you sell the PC to would have to install the operating system from scratch, using the operating system installation CD (if you have one!) and the product key on the holographic sticker usually found on the side of the PC case.

HTML200

If you have a system restore CD, then just use that after wiping.

Otherwise, reinstall windows using the windows install disk provided.

If you don't have that, either don't use DBAN, or sell it without an OS, or install Linux instead.

fermi

To be honest, if I was buying a 2nd hand PC I would much rather it had a freshly wiped HD and a newly installed OS.

If it didn't, then I think it would be the first thing I did.