Formatting everything apart from an OS...

[PileUp Officer]

Hi folks,

I've had quick search through but I wanted some fairly specific advice.


I'm looking to buy a laptop in a few months and as i'm a poor student and to try and reduce the amount of stuff I have to cart round the country with me I'm planning on selling my desktop on eBay just before I upgrade.

I've been hearing a lot about the dangers of people getting their hands on your personal information and so was wondering if anyone could tell me their thoughts on the best way for me get rid of mine?

Is there any way I can delete all my files and information and keep the OS? I don't have an installation disk and I imagine the computer will be worth a lot more with Windows XP than without.

What are people's thoughts on just doing it manually? Ie. Deleting everything in My Documents and clearing all the Recent History info from my programs?

Thanks in advance

[Bushfiva]

Wiping the drive and reinstalling the OS is the way to go (actually, removing the drive is the way to go...) but if you can't do that, simply deleting everything, then running a utility that cleans the registry and temp files (such as ccleaner), then running something like Tolvanen's free Eraser prog would be pretty good. The Eraser prog can wipe all the free space on the hard drive, and also clean up the file table.

While deleting stuff, don't forget your emails, browser data (especially if you use it to remember passwords), etc.

There's lots of software that will do roughly the same job.

Update: I see Tolvanen's Eraser is now being maintained by Heidi, at heidi.ie.

[green granite]

I'd use something like this Kill Disk. Erase Hard Drive Completely. Eraser Cleaner. IDE SATA SCSI to completely erase and ovewrite all the hard drive so that files can't be recovered (it'll run in dos mode) and then just re-install windows.

[PileUp Officer]

I don't have the installation disk though. I did order it from Dell but it never arrived and I never chased it up.

Ccleaner sounds good, I think i'll try something like that as well as changing all my passwords around the same time for good measure.

Thanks for the advice and if any one else has any more suggestions please don't hesitate to post.

[Background Noise]

Is there some sort of recovery partition? Check by using disk management (click start, right-click on 'my computer' and click manage, then disk management). Is there a Dell recovery option somewhere in the Dell-bundled software?

Failing all that, if you have a licence for XP (on a sticker somewhere on the PC) you should be able to re-install XP using a borrowed setup disc, using your licence key.

[PileUp Officer]

Hmmm, sounds too risky to me. Back when I had Win95/98 I must have reinstalled it at least five times but seeing as I don't have the XP disk I don't really want to chance it.

I think I'll just take the first option, after all, as long as I change my passwords what personal information could they get of mine anyway?
Maybe some photos or text files? I have nothing too juicy on this computer.
I think.

[Gertrude the Wombat]

If you're serious about deleting personal information the only way is to remove the hard disk drive and destroy it with a hammer.

Anything less than that, at least some data can be recovered by anyone who cares enough.

Buy why would anyone care enough??

[PileUp Officer]

Well, yeah, that's what I'm thinking.
Sure they could read an assignment I wrote five years ago or find photos of me drunk but who would really want to?

Should I be worried about any of this personal data? Is there something obvious I'm missing?

[Bushfiva]

Emails with a credit card number or passwords in them, any other documents with a credit card number or passwords in them, email account name and password, helpful little "let me remember that for you" settings in your browser, things in pictures you'd rather not let others see, information on the hard drive that lets the next owner work out your daily pattern and have his mates visit when you're at work, bank details, etc.

[twiggs]

This is what I would do.
Uninstall as many of the programs as you can that you added to the system.
Delete all favorites, cookies, saved passwords, and autocomplete history, email accounts, as already mentioned
Create a new administrator account.
Log in as the new administrator and delete the old administrator account and any other user accounts that exist.
Go into C>Documents and Settings and delete any remaining folders that have the name of the user profiles you just deleted.

The only way to save your XP install and zero write the hard drive would be to make an image of the your now basic setup, zero write and then restore the backup.

No need to be paranoid, it would be pretty strange for someone to spend a lot of time and effort trying to find something that they have no idea is even there in the first place, and hence don't know what they are looking for.

[Bushfiva]

I'll call you on that one.

The only way to save your XP install and zero write the hard drive would be to...

use any one of a bazillion utilities such as Tolvanen's/Heidi's Eraser (post 2), Disk Redactor, PGP Free Space Wipe, etc.

[twiggs]

Yes Bushfiva,
I was trying to think how to avoid reinstallation but being able to wipe the disk as a whole entity.
Sorry, just ignore that part of the post, it is more bother than it's worth.
Anyway, doing the free space is probably more than enough in this case, and even doing that at all is hardly worth the bother.