We’d like to remind Forumites to please avoid political debate on the Forum.

This is to keep it a safe and useful space for MoneySaving discussions. Threads that are – or become – political in nature may be removed in line with the Forum’s rules. Thank you for your understanding.

📨 Have you signed up to the Forum's new Email Digest yet? Get a selection of trending threads sent straight to your inbox daily, weekly or monthly!

Need to sell a laptop and need to erase data on it

loveandlight
loveandlight Posts: 1,200 Forumite
Part of the Furniture 500 Posts Combo Breaker
in Techie Stuff
I need to sell my laptop and want to make sure the buyer can't restore my highly confidential data that I have deleted. I have reset to factory settings but am sure this may not be enough.

Can anyone recommend a quick effective way of ensuring my deleted data can't be restored?

Many thanks
«1

Comments

  • AlecEiffel
    AlecEiffel Posts: 874 Forumite
    Do you have the installation media? Or a recovery dvd (or use the inbuilt recovery to make a recovery dvd)? You can then use dban to overwrite the data on the hard drive and reinstall the os from the disc. Or if you are on windows 8 use the full reset and overwrite option.
  • GunJack
    GunJack Posts: 11,864 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    CCleaner's wipe free space utility will do it perfectly adequately, no need to go to the lengths of DBan unless you had State secrets on it ;)
    ......Gettin' There, Wherever There is......

    I have a dodgy "i" key, so ignore spelling errors due to "i" issues, ...I blame Apple :D
  • Pobby
    Pobby Posts: 5,438 Forumite
    Lots of free utilities. Ccleaner as mentioned. Have a look.

    http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/tp/free-data-destruction-software.htm
  • henm2
    henm2 Posts: 723 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 500 Posts Combo Breaker
    edited 7 February 2015 at 8:56PM
    I always use DBAN booted from a flash drive for such circumstances. However take care to remove the flash drive the instant you start DBAN off or your flash drive will be wiped also along with any other attached drives.
    http://sourceforge.net/projects/dban/
    http://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb-creator/ for putting DBAN on a flash drive
  • loveandlight
    loveandlight Posts: 1,200 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 500 Posts Combo Breaker
    Many thanks everyone. x
  • woody2234
    woody2234 Posts: 414 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts
    Does DBAN wipe everything even windows operating system
    Let them eat cake (Marie Antoinette 1765)
  • GunJack
    GunJack Posts: 11,864 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    woody2234 wrote: »
    Does DBAN wipe everything even windows operating system

    yes, it does...
    ......Gettin' There, Wherever There is......

    I have a dodgy "i" key, so ignore spelling errors due to "i" issues, ...I blame Apple :D
  • woody2234
    woody2234 Posts: 414 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts
    Well what I done last year was take out the hard drive from my hp laptop pc and take out the metal disc from hard drive and sand paper the disc both sides but that was because the pc was beyond set back to factory settings but next time its DBAN all the way
    Let them eat cake (Marie Antoinette 1765)
  • GunJack
    GunJack Posts: 11,864 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    woody2234 wrote: »
    Well what I done last year was take out the hard drive from my hp laptop pc and take out the metal disc from hard drive and sand paper the disc both sides but that was because the pc was beyond set back to factory settings but next time its DBAN all the way

    are you really that paranoid? Without specialist kit a hdd that's been overwritten a couple of times is perfectly adequate....
    ......Gettin' There, Wherever There is......

    I have a dodgy "i" key, so ignore spelling errors due to "i" issues, ...I blame Apple :D
  • agrinnall
    agrinnall Posts: 23,344 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    Is your second hand laptop actually worth anything?
This discussion has been closed.
★ ★ ★ Meet your Ambassadors

🚀 Getting Started

Hi new member!

Our Getting Started Guide will help you get the most out of the Forum

Categories

  • All Categories
  • 351.7K Banking & Borrowing
  • 253.4K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
  • 454K Spending & Discounts
  • 244.7K Work, Benefits & Business
  • 600.1K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
  • 177.3K Life & Family
  • 258.4K Travel & Transport
  • 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
  • 16.2K Discuss & Feedback
  • 37.6K Read-Only Boards

Is this how you want to be seen?

We see you are using a default avatar. It takes only a few seconds to pick a picture.
Update Your Picture