Help please with wiping hard-drive before selling PC

dreams_R_free

Hi. I really hope someone can help.

Someone gave DS a PC recently which had supposedly been 'cleaned' of data etc and all sorts of stuff was left on there, some of it highly unsuitable for a lad of his age:eek:

There's nothing suspect on mine but I would like to clear it completely before selling it. I know just removing/deleting stuff doesn't completely eradicate it. I heard somewhere of a programme(free I think:j ) which will completely overwrite all the data on a PC with gibberish:rotfl: , leaving it totally unrecoverable, being up to US Government standard or something like that.

Do any of you clever techies have any idea what I'm talking about? All help very gratefully received as I want to advertise the PC early next week.
Thanks:beer:
Imp

gaming_guy

i think the program you mean is DBAN

bat999

gaming_guy wrote: »

i think the program you mean is DBAN

Yes, that's the one.
But it will wipe out Windows too.
So you'll need to either re-install Windows using the Windows CD or sell it without an operating system.
:cool:

dreams_R_free

Thanks guys for the superfast response:T

DBAN wasn't the same one I'd heard about( but have forgotten the name of:o) but it certainly looks the business.

:beer:
Imp

windym_2

On a similar note, (if I can hijack), my Dell PC is going back to Dell tomorrow (faulty), what should I do to reset everything? Its being exchanged for a new one, hence the clean.

CHR15

The same as above!!

If it simply won't boot but you have sensitive information on there, your only course of action would be to remove the hard drive and fit it to another PC.

You could then wipe it and refit it to the Dell PC (assuming it is not the hard drive which has failed of course)

MercilessKiller

Just a note.. you must DBAN it 7 times to make it completely unrecoverable tests have shown

frugalpam

Hiya - I've used this one http://www.objectwipe.com/ - you can get a free trial

Pam

Impomdasp wrote: »

Hi. I really hope someone can help.

Someone gave DS a PC recently which had supposedly been 'cleaned' of data etc and all sorts of stuff was left on there, some of it highly unsuitable for a lad of his age:eek:

There's nothing suspect on mine but I would like to clear it completely before selling it. I know just removing/deleting stuff doesn't completely eradicate it. I heard somewhere of a programme(free I think:j ) which will completely overwrite all the data on a PC with gibberish:rotfl: , leaving it totally unrecoverable, being up to US Government standard or something like that.

Do any of you clever techies have any idea what I'm talking about? All help very gratefully received as I want to advertise the PC early next week.
Thanks:beer:
Imp