selling computer

I know this question has probably been asked a zillion times before, but I'm an idiot when it comes to computers.
I am selling 2 computers at a garage sale this weekend and I want to get everything off the hard drive. How do I do this? I don't have the driver disks for either.
Help!!!

 

File wipe

I would suggest you buy Norton's Utilities and operate a file wipe. System Suite could do the same.
But the easiest would be to go to your local computer store and ask them to do it for you. ha!

 

forget that, don't buy anything.... just hook up the computer and delete everything you want to delete manually. I have sold a computer before, and I simply booted up the computer and uninstalled and deleted everything manually I didn't want on the computer. Just make sure you empty the recycle bin.

 

listen to robo...

deleting files doesn't erase the file. you will have to use a disk wiper program or perform a low-level format.

 

i dunno whether its me or has everyone misunderstood? you want to get the data off it to put on a new computer?

Kay, just to add my support if you are giving this to someone, i would re-install the operating system after doing a format, but driver disks, does that include the OS that came with it?

 

sounds like she wants to completely wipe out the information currently stored so no one else has access to it.

 

you don't have to buy anything in order to write 0's to a drive and perform a low level format. Simply open up the PC, look at the hard drive and go to the vendors website, i.e. www.westerndigital.com, www.maxtor.com and download the drive diagnostics. It will have a low-level utility in there.

 

that's competely wrong, when you "delete" something with Windows the info is still on the hard drive all that happened was it was removed from what the FS sees, to actually delete it you need to erase it several times with a program like Eraser because just a delete or format does not get rid of data, but If you run Eraser, and format, that should be good, do a full HDD erase 10 times, Erase the files, reformat, and you should be good.

 

are you a tad paranoid? 10 times? sheesh.. look, that's just bad advice for the average person. You know it and I know it. Unless she sells it to someone that is going to intentionally try to retrieve data residue, then there is no need to go beyond the old scrape and reinstall.

 

Actually I am very paranoid, I told her 10 but I do 35...... and then I do all 000s after 35 random over writes.... You have not even seen tip of my paranoia . But you're probably right, no one is gonna buy the computer to intentionally look for files, then again, you never know... But just 1-2 over writes (yes I still think 1-2) is reasonable.



(Oh, I also use 4096 bit DSA and 448 bit blowfish for encryption, both have 13 letter passwords )

 

He going sell his old computers at garage sale. He wont know strangers who will buy them in any chance a pc genius. He could remove harddrives and keep it to himself or destroy them to save all worries.

 

hey Vlad, go get some medication for that paranoia of yours.

 

I did a search for "hard drive erase" because I was inquiring about it in another thread and ended up finding this thread. Therefore, excuse me for posting yet another reply to this thread, but I have a question about what Major Attitude said about the "Format c: /s." I've briefly heard about the "Format c: /s" when it comes to erasing the hard drive, but I'm really not familiar with the procedure. Could someone explain that to me and the meaning of Major Attitude's words when he said, "Format c: /s will make it so the PC boots to dos for the new owner and is usually sufficient" ?

 

Basically, you use the 'format' command to wipe the current operating system from the hard drive. Following it with the " /s" simply tells it to load the bare minimum system files onto the hard drive to allow you to boot the computer into DOS afterwards. "Usually sufficient" meaning 99% of the people who might buy your used computer would not know how to recover the data you have just formatted.

 

Simple answer.

1. If you have no particularly Sensitive data, either goto your HDD manaufacturors site and download a format disk, or a low level format disk. Extract to a floppy or CD, boot from it and hey presto.

2. If you have sensitive data and beleive big brother is watching you, get Eraser from this site, make a format boot disk, set it to over write with random bytes 1-7 times, wait a few hours and voila.

3. If your using XP, and dont care about data, Boot from the XP CD, and pretend your installing it, then simply delete the partitions when you get the option, and power off, on boot you will get a no operating system found error.