Erase

[Felix Saddler]

how do you go about erasing everything from your pc to get it back to its original state of purchase? I ask as i'm selling this pc on and need to get rid of all my junk on it!!

[AlphaMale]

You need to re-format the hard drive.

[Shunter]

Either use the recovery discs your vendor should (might?) have supplied with our machine, or install the OS (Windoze?) fresh then go scrabbling around the web for the hardware drivers.

If you want to utterly erase everything on the machine so its truly incapable of being recovered, I suggest you use something like Boot n Nuke first. It's free, by the way.

[Mac the Knife]

Reformatting won't do.

Unless you have extremely sensitive data then try Eraser Free from http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/ (read the FAQs) or SysInternals free sDelete http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Security/SDelete.mspx

Though theoretically not totally bulletproof, getting any data out of the drive after running one of these would be technically difficult and very expensive.

:ok:

[Felix Saddler]

Thanks for the quick responses guys.. I dont have the recovery disks anymore, im running windows xp in an emachines config.. Yes i would like to completely remove everything, should i boot and nuke?

[dazdaz]

In the old days DOS 3.1 one could enter a 'wild card' delete as....

DEL*.* think it might still work on xp if you go ...start>run the *=all files. I've had a go on xp with the old DOS commands and most of them work.

Daz

[frostbite]

You might like to try Power Desk 5 (5 is the FREE one) which, as well as being an excellent replacement for Explorer, offers DESTROY as well as DELETE in the File menu.

[ZH875]

In the old days DOS 3.1 one could enter a 'wild card' delete as....

DEL*.* think it might still work on xp if you go ...start>run the *=all files. I've had a go on xp with the old DOS commands and most of them work.

Daz

WARNING:

Delete *.* will leave all the files on the hard disk, it just puts a '?' in the first character of each entry in the File Allocation Table (FAT), all can be recovered using a floppy disk or USB boot.

To delete data securely there are two options, a proper wipe program or a cutting torch.

Try Drivescrubber (http://www.download.com/3000-2092_4-10771497.html). a 3 use free trial should be enough for your needs.

You could always consider buying a new cheap HD and fit that, keep your old HD until you can destroy it. :ok:

[Bushfiva]

DBAN is available as an ISO image. Make the CD, boot from it and then wipe the disk with extreme prejudice :}. I use it to decommission old office hard drives. Then I it em wiv an ammer, but that will affect your resale value so you may want to skip that step.

[Saab Dastard]

To delete data securely there are two options, a proper wipe program or a cutting torch.

ZH875 is absolutely right - if you really have to ensure that the data on the disk cannot be recovered, then you have to do it properly.

He forgot to mention the hammer, which is my personal favourite.

SD

[Avtrician]

Place the hard drive in another machine, with some disc scrubbing utilities is a good way,

Or you can use file manager to delete every thing, reformat the drive, then defrag the drive. format and defrag again a few times.

The drive will now be ready to put back in the original box, and reload the operating system.

If the buyer realy wanted to, he/she could take the time and trouble to recover a bit of the previous information. They would realy have to want to see your old emails or what ever to try.

[Felix Saddler]

My computer keeps restarting itself if i dont log onto windows immediately?? Why might this be?