Wipe clean home computer for selling

dodgyeyes

Hi, I wonder if anyone can help a really untechy lady to wipe my home computer before I get rid of it?
Can you please tell me how to go about it? I would really appreciate some help. Thank you.

free4440273

http://www.dban.org/about

^this is pretty good at nuking //

googler

dodgyeyes wrote: »

Hi, I wonder if anyone can help a really untechy lady to wipe my home computer before I get rid of it?
Can you please tell me how to go about it? I would really appreciate some help. Thank you.

If you're getting a new computer, then the least techy way of safeguarding your data is to keep the hard drive from this machine.

Buy a blank hard drive of the same type, swap this blank one with the one in the current PC, and keep the current one for installing as a secondary drive on your new machine

It's not difficult to remove/insert a hard drive. Small cross-head screwdriver, possibly a few mounting screws from Maplin, a little bit of googling and you're sorted.

If the current machine is a laptop, there may be a caddy around the actual HDD; leave this with the machine, as it will be specific to the make/model.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=replacing+hard+drive

warehouse

The best way would be to re-install the operating system, making sure the drive is formatted during install.

victor2

googler's option is the best. Even formatting and re-installing the operating system won't necessarily stop someone determined to find what was on there. Depends what you've got on there and what value you attach to it I suppose.
Just remove the drive and sell it without one. If you have no further use for the old drive, destroy it with a large hammer, which can be quite satisfying!

leanneloves

another big fan of Dban here

GunJack

DBAN is ok if you have the OS disks to re-install once it's been nuked. Otherwise, you're restricting your potential buyers to people techie enough to do it themselves and/or have the correct OS disks to do so

googler

GunJack wrote: »

DBAN is ok if you have the OS disks to re-install once it's been nuked. Otherwise, you're restricting your potential buyers to people techie enough to do it themselves and/or have the correct OS disks to do so

..and there's plenty of them out there, as evidenced by my sale of a laptop, no drive, no discs, AND with a screen fault, on eBay, with at least 15 bids before eventual sale.....

emc

dodgyeyes wrote: »

Hi, I wonder if anyone can help a really untechy lady to wipe my home computer before I get rid of it?
Can you please tell me how to go about it? I would really appreciate some help. Thank you.

If you want to wipe the computer but keep the operating system so that the computer is still usable and saleable, the simplest method is to use CCleaner from www piriform com.

Start CCleaner.
Click on the Tools icon.
Click Drive Wiper.
Make sure the Wipe option is 'Free Space Only' (it should be anyway).
Select Security to be 'Gutman (35 passes)'.
For Drives, tick the box for C: and any other lettered drive.
Click Wipe.
Make yourself a big cup of coffee.

dojoman

I have used Dban and found really effective.

Mr_Oink

free4440273 wrote: »

http://www.dban.org/about

^this is pretty good at nuking //

It sure is, but it's slow. If the drive is post 2000, use the SecureErase boot disc - it calls a native ATA command on the drive and takes just a few minutes to destroy the contents.

http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/SecureErase.shtml

Takes a little more savvy, mind you.