Making Old Laptop Safe to Sell

closed

dban and the like will wipe everything, including your factory restore partition or means of creating windows discs, which will knock ££'s off the machines value.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=45960641&postcount=17

Dave_C_2

GunJack wrote: »

Common sense....it'll never catch on

I never set up "user" accounts & passwords on any of my machines, either my own or any I do up & sell....I don't really get why people insist on doing this, especially as a bootdisk can just remove them anyway...

I have them on my home PCs so that Mrs_C and visiting Grandkids all have non-admin accounts and can't install software that I don't know about.
That's the theory anyway but the older grandson is getting way too smart:)
Dave

vax2002

there is only 1 sure way.
you put the hard disk in a metal shredder.

Lifeforms

OneADay wrote: »

...But by the time you are done erasing the disk, it will probably be fried hot.

vax2002 wrote: »

there is only 1 sure way.
you put the hard disk in a metal shredder.

None of these answers are helpful, as been posted by several people there are ways to make it safe to sell. If you really are so paranoid about what information or bad stuff you have on a laptop that you're going to just kill a disk totally, then really you should be sat in a tin foil lined room, wearing a tin foil hat with no technology around you at all.

In the case of work computers where there really is multiple sensitive informations on it, you would not just be able to sell it on ebay. It would almost certainly just go through a destruction route to be made safe anyway.

giggles_alot

Thanks again to all who have replied offering advice and opinions.

Laptop was mainly used for course work and general personal use (online shopping, general browsing etc) to I didn't consider the need to completely destroy the hard drive

I have deleted all obvious things, documents, music, photos etc. I have removed programmes I know I have installed itunes, messenger and programmes related to courses.

I have set up a new admin and deleted my previous admin

I have cleared internet cookies, history etc, run scans for viruses and malware and I have run killdisk.

I know it can only be completely safe if it is removed or shredded but have I taken enough reasonable measures to prevent my information getting into the wrong hands?

Thanks again