Factory settings

biggar_2

I'm giving my old dell laptop to the Oxfam charity shop and I've been told to go back to factory settings as nobody could then see my old posts and emails and in fact would not know when I was last on the laptop. Is this a fact?
Thanks in advance.

taxi97w

Changing the factory/default settings will not delete or hide your past.
Formatting the hard disk is probably the quickest and easiest but there will be no operating system left on the comp, so you may want to re-install that for the next person.

biggar_2

Oh dear. I wish I knew more.
The guy in the computer shop said that if I had a recovery disc, that would put the laptop right back as if I had just bought it. Was that wrong?

Lawbag_2

all Dells ship with a recovery CD which resetted the machine back to "shop" new state

isgman

use the "recovery" CD that should have been shipped with the system ( you may have had to "burn" the CD yourself as it is sometimes left on the HDD as a "ghost" image) this should put the system back to the same setting you had at Day1, when you fisrt got the machine, (sometimes the CD may be called Re-Installation CD).. Good Luck

alared

Don`t know how old your machine is but Dell these days DO NOT ship a recovery disk,it partitioned on the hard drive.
(a great idea in my opinion)

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Using Dell PC Restore by Symantec
Use Dell PC Restore by Symantec only as the last method to restore your operating system. PC

Restore restores your hard drive to the operating state it was in when you purchased the computer.

Any programs or files added since you received your computer—including data files—are
permanently deleted from the hard drive.
Data files include documents, spreadsheets, e-mail
messages, digital photos, music files, and so on. If possible, back up all data before using PC
Restore.
NOTICE: Using PC Restore permanently deletes all data on the hard drive and removes any applications
or drivers installed after you received your computer. If possible, back up the data before using PC
Restore.
To use PC Restore:
1 Turn on the computer.
During the boot process, a blue bar with https://www.dell.com appears at the top of the screen.
2 Immediately upon seeing the blue bar, press <Ctrl><F11>.
If you do not press <Ctrl><F11> in time, let the computer finish restarting, and then
restart the computer again.
NOTICE: If you do not want to proceed with PC Restore, click Reboot in the following step.