Clearing a PC.

SuziQ

Pardon my ignorance please, as I can operate a computer but have no real skills. I have a laptop that was my DD's (she upgraded) that I have offered to a friend, but want to clear the hard drive-it's absolutely full of music and photos! Is there any quick way of doing this,without buying anything and without taking off Microsoft office etc, or is it just a matter os systematically deleting stuff and emptying te recycle bin?

Many thanks for any replies.

Little_Miss_Uni-Debt

Hi,

Firstly make doubly sure that it's ok to delete the files etc! The simplest way to do this is to create a new user and delete the old user. I presume the laptop has Windows XP on it. To carry this out simply log on and go to :-

Start button > Control Panel > User Accounts > Create new user account

Create a new account called 'User' or something like that that is an administrator account.

Then close the window and log off. Log into the new user account that you just created. Go back into the control panel and delete the other user.

It will ask if you want to delete all of the files, click yes. Now have a clean user account (no music, photos) but all the programs are still there.

If there are any programs you want to delete go to :-

start button > control panel > add/remove programs > select the program you want to remove out of the list > click remove.

Hope this helps. If you get stuck along the way at all let me know!

SuziQ

Thank you! I knew nothing about creating a new user account but it makes perfect sense to me. Just need my daughter to put her passowrd in so I can get started and will come back again if I do get stuck. Wish me luck!

Little_Miss_Uni-Debt

Go for it! I'm sure you'll be fine!

penrhyn

OP You will not be fine with the above.
Are you sure that your DD has not got passwords, personal information on the machine?
There may be pictures she does not want others to see.
Your friend may pass the PC on to another less honest person.
At the very least you shouldwipe the hard disk and reinstall the operating system.

If you don't have the skills to do this yourself then maybe you know someone who can. or take the machine to a computer shop ( an independent not PC Dixons Curry World)

Little_Miss_Uni-Debt

Even a wiped HDD can be recovered. Anyone with THAT kind of intent and HDD recovery software can find fragments of files on any wiped drive.

How would wiping the hard disk help? If the OP was worried about sensitive data the only advice I would have given them is to physically damage the hard drive and buy a new one.

In this case they just wanted to get rid of old docs/music that were taking up space and not have to re-install the operating system and programs.

spud17

I'm with penrhyn, a FULL format and reinstall, the best balance between paranoia and laziness.

This will allow any crud to be removed, and should over-write much of the existing data.

Little_Miss_Uni-Debt

A re-install would free up lots of space yes, however that depends on if the OP has the recovery/Windows disks and disks for any programs they wanted to put back on, plus the time to do it.

XP is about 2gb to 3gb re-installed so it would over-write some existing data but not all.

So if we're going down the paranoia route then a wipe followed by a overwrite of the disk with a data dump program is the only safe way to go! Or you could do this process 3 times - which is apparently "U.S military and Government standard" but even this is only medium security!

It just depends on what lengths the OP wants to go to!

SuziQ

Listen guys, the friend is actually her father ( I don't call him my ex generally as I have a second ex husband since him!)-he has no real computer skills and no interest in any of her stuff! He just wants a basic machine (and boy is this basic!) to be able to do letters for job applications and email for the same. He has a secure place to keep it and I am currently backing up some of her stuff onto an external hard drive before I proceed.If I was giving outside the family I guess I would have had to get someone with more savvy involved. I appreciate all the advice though as I am really ignorant of all this stuff.

Robin_T_Cox

To completely clear a computer hard drive, use Darik's Boot and Nuke.

http://www.dban.org/

SuziQ

Just came on to say that I followed Little Miss-Unidebt's advice-it took 16 minutes to delete my daughters account lol!- and it is now running so much faster. I'm really not worried about the info being still on there-my ex as promised me he won't just toss it when he eventually replaces it so at that point I'll take it back. Then I can use the programme Robin has advised or the equivalent at that time. Many thanks for all of your help.