Wiping a company laptop

skyranger

Hi - I have left a company that went under dramatically.  So there wasn't an opportunity to hand it back the laptop despite me contacting the company.
Can I easily "wipe" the laptop so it's "brand new".  I know you can clear data off etc but does this remove all the admin things?

grumpycrab

Clean install from media https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10
Can do a hard disk format as part of clean install.
assumption1. laptop has existing windows7 or windows10 license  assumption2. bios doesn't prevent this (e.g. booting from external media)

jsmith9

The above will be fine as long as you are happy the data is not sensitive. 

To completely clear the data, you will have to overwrite all unused disk space with eg zeros following the re-install using a program such as eraser.

mluton

If windows 10.....................Hit start, Type "reset" / reset this pc will appear, click / Click get started on Reset this PC (top) / Click remove everything.
This should remove it from a domain if it was tied to one.

A_Lert

There are a few options.

Disk wiping software such as DBAN booted from a CD or USB stick is the old-school way. With solid state drives, data may be recoverable with professional equipment involving dismantling the drive.

The "ATA Secure Erase" is the new way for SSDs.

If the system used Bitlocker with a TPM, clearing the TPM (which you do in the computer's UEFI) will render the drive unreadable without the Bitlocker recovery key.

All these will leave you with a laptop with essentially a blank hard drive. You can reinstall Windows afterwards if you like.

poppellerant

Don't bother resetting Windows 10, as this isn't wiping the laptop securely.  As above, use DBAN to wipe the drive.

Are you wiping the laptop to sell it on, or for personal use? If you're wiping it to sell on, then consider running multiple passes to reduce the chances of anybody recovering something they shouldn't from the drive.

CoastingHatbox

The laptop belongs to whomever has been appointed to administrate the business and compensate it the company's creditors.

The companies creditors include staff with unpaid wages.

Personally, I would find out who the appointed receiver/administrator is and offer to return the laptop to them, at their cost.

greyteam1959

Yes I would agree the laptop is not yours it is an asset of the company.

IvanOpinion

If your company's IT security team did their job properly then you may actually struggle to wipe their laptop.

a

Dban is OK, but may not fully erase 100% of the disk, and it is painfully slow. With windows on an ssd, once you have deleted, and the way windows 10 implements trim and repacks unused memory on ssd 99.99% of the time even professionals wont get your data back from ssd on windows, but if the disk has electronically failed then it may be possible.. The apple os is abit hit and miss on trim, and linux does not use trim.

The fastest, and one of the best secure disk eraser is on http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html called HDDERASE. it is much faster than dban, but still takes hours, but way less hours than dban, and it erases your whole drive, not only most of your drive (like dban which skips the G table sector list). This software does not actually directly wipe your disk, but triggers your disk to wipe itself by using the secure wipe routine in built into every hard disk since early 2000's as part of the disks standard specification

mksysb

a said:

Dban is OK, but may not fully erase 100% of the disk, and it is painfully slow. With windows on an ssd, once you have deleted, and the way windows 10 implements trim and repacks unused memory on ssd 99.99% of the time even professionals wont get your data back from ssd on windows, but if the disk has electronically failed then it may be possible.. The apple os is abit hit and miss on trim, and linux does not use trim.

The fastest, and one of the best secure disk eraser is on http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html called HDDERASE. it is much faster than dban, but still takes hours, but way less hours than dban, and it erases your whole drive, not only most of your drive (like dban which skips the G table sector list). This software does not actually directly wipe your disk, but triggers your disk to wipe itself by using the secure wipe routine in built into every hard disk since early 2000's as part of the disks standard specification

Linux does use trim.