Will using the restore partition fully clear my HDD?

Hey guys,

I just ordered a new laptop and want to sell my Acer when it arrives and I know its all working fine.

I was wondering if I use the restore partition will it fully clear my HDD properly or will there still be ways to personal data to be extracted from the computer?

I don't want to leave access to any financial information, other personal data, or things such as browsing history etc

I'd guess there are people who buy laptops from Ebay to try and get financial data or stored passwords etc that people haven't bothered to ensure were removed so don't want to fall into a trap like that.

Also any idea how much I could get for the Acer in my Sig in really good condition? £75-£100 on ebay?!?

 

Nah, a bit more -- around £150-200....because I just saw an Aspire 3680 go out with a bad USB DC Board - for about £100 shipped....
You can just buy and install another OEM HDD from ebay or so, and keep the original HDD with you in a external USB caddy for future backups or data storage..!!
Restoring and Windows formatting only removes the references and tags for the data - not the data itself....To do a proper format - the data needs to be overwritten a no. of times, which leads to the data being recoverable maybe by the use of an atomic microscope..

Try out DBan, thats the software for you but it does take a while to get the whole thing done - so buying a cheap HDD from EBay is a better option..!!
And is it an IDE or SATA HDD..??

 

On my 5315, the acer e-recovery, or alt+F10 at boot only restores the C partition, called ACER (might be different for you) so everything on that partition will be gone, but if you HDD has any other partitions, they will be left intact, so if you have personal data on those, you should format them. No idea how much it would sell for though.

duksandfish

 

hehe it is a SATA HDD in mine. It is only 80GB in size though. I'll either use some software or get a cheap HDD as suggested. Just want to be sure because a lot of people probably sell theirs on without thinking!

 

Yeah, though I know of only DBan and ActiveKillDisk that remove the data securely and permanently....

 

Would these also cause the recovery partition to be cleared?

 

I haven't tried ActiveKillDisk....But they will wipe the whole HDD clean..!!
If you need the recovery partition, make an image of it and store it on an optical disc or copy it to another HDD....
You want to give the HDD alongwith the laptop as RAW pr with free partitions or with something installed..??

 

Just want to give it with the default Acer install of XP SP2

 

Is the XP recovery thing in a separate partition, or in C..??

And does the recovery include any personal stuff of yours that you have added, or does it restore the system to its factory settings..??

And how many partitions do you have in the local drive..??

And which OS are you running..??

 

this link any of the freeware or shareware programs will give you the ability to wipe the ENTIRE DRIVE by writing over the entire disk w/ random characters or filling drive w/ ZEROs (need to do atleast a 7-pass wipe to be relatively safe.. a 35 pass is almost overkill unless the feds are on your trail