Selling laptop, how do I get everything off?

Im selling my 1720. my question is, how do I clean everything off, so its like it came from dell?

 

how much are you selling it for? why are you selling it?

to clean it off you'll need to format your hd. do you have the install disc? Sometimes they don't include the discs with your purchase.

 

Im not really selling it, trading it for an hp laptop + an LG viewity phone.

I have all the cds it came with

 

there should be like a windows vista disc. insert that into your drive and on boot up it will ask you if you want to reformat your drive, reinstall vista, etc.

You may want to wait for someone more experienced to come on, though, since I havent reformatted a drive since windows 98

 

Formatting will not wipe everything just the "index/table of contents" a hammer works well. But there are applications that will also work.

 

Heres teh CD's I have.

Mc Afee
Audigy
Roxio
Dell drivers and utilities
OS
Application

 

Reformatting gets rid of everything except the OS I think?
idk havent reformatted for a long time also, I was going to then I got back from a trip and my desktop was fried so im just getting a new computer lol.

But yeah just put in the Vista disc and it should give you the option to reformat. If your getting rid of it then it dosnt really matter if you mess it up cuase all they need is the OS on there

 

Your all wrong formatting does as I said.

 

Pop in the OS disc.

As your computer is starting up, it should list options. Go for the one that will clear your regular files and reinstall the system files.

 

And if you really are serious about erasing everything off your hard drive, I do believe that the American military does this process 8 if not 16 times on a hard drive before it considers it safe that no one can recover the information.

It might not be 16 times, but I know it's at least 8.

 

If you're looking to just erase EVERYTHING, use Darik's Boot and Nuke.

 

Thank you for listening to me. I believe the standard is called DOD or Department of Defense standards. I thought they were less but anyway certainly not formatting.

 

DBan works very well, but before use, read the instructions and particulars thoroughly. Your drive will be clean.

 

This is your HDD> That should pretty much take care of it!

 

Try this Active@Kill
http://www.killdisk.com

Active@ KillDisk - Hard Drive Eraser is powerful and compact software that allows you to destroy all data on hard and floppy drives completely, excluding any possibility of future recovery of deleted files and folders. It's a hard drive and partition eraser utility.

If you use FDISK, FORMAT utilities, or DELETE standard operating system command for data removal, there is always a chance to recover deleted files (using undelete file or some data recovery software) and use against the owner's will. We highly recommend you to run this FREE utility for the hard and floppy drives you want to dispose of, recycle, re-use, sell or donate to somebody.

Active@ KillDisk conforms to US Department of Defense clearing and sanitizing standard DoD 5220.22-M. The most secure Gutmann's data destruction method is also implemented. You can be sure that once you clean up with Active@ KillDisk, sensitive information is purged out forever.

What’s new in version 5.0 (Windows application):

1. New Wipe function that wipes out all unused space on existing drives, not touching existing data.
2. Professional package now includes Windows Vista-based Bootable Disk Creator that allows you to boot Windows Vista from CD/DVD, and to erase or wipe out your disks in Windows environment. USB Plug'n'Play devices are supported.
3. The FREE application can be registered with a registration key without re-installation to be able to erase data using DoD 5220.22-M and other methods.

What’s new in version 4.1 (DOS application):

1. New Wipe function that wipes out all unused space on existing drives, not touching existing data.
2. Package now includes an additional REAL-MODE application (KD_REAL.EXE) which is more compatible with different types of hardware and more compact in size.

This is security software for unrecoverable data elimination for any computer capable of booting in DOS mode from floppy drive. It uses access to the drive’s data on a physical level via BIOS bypassing logical drive structure organization, thus it does not matter what operating systems and file systems located on the machine.

It can work with DOS, Windows Vista, Windows XP / 2000 / NT / XP Professional x64 / XP Home x64/ 2003 Server x64, Linux, Unix for PC etc.

 

if everything is HD why dont you just buy a new small HD and remove your one and physically destroy it (not sure if that would work, can the OS be installed on a new HD)

 

Or if your that worried change over HDD place your current one in the new LAPTOP etc thats if it's the same type SATA..

 

the program the military uses (or one of them) is BCwipe. Its freeware you can download (google it). It takes a while to chug through everything. it nukes the free space on your drive. If your hard drive is a POS and flakey... it might be enough to push it over the edge... thats from personal expirance... but its a pos machine... do that and anything you erased is PERMENTALLY gone... if it is good enough for the DoD its good enough for my personal use.

Rick

 

I still want to computer to be like it was comming from dell. Will any of these programs mess that up? I just want my personal stuff off.

 

No, with the disks that came with, after you wipe re-setup the system the wat DeLL set up.

 

OK idk what I did, but I keep reinstaling the OS CD, and it takes forever on the last part, and I just leave it on. When I come back, I see a blank black screen. I put in the drivers disk and I guess I got that on, I put in the media center CD, and it said its erasing the HDD and to put the OS cd in. So I have to OS cd in and its doing its thing..

When I try to get on the computer, it wont get past the screen that has the little loading bar with the lights going back and forth, and the lights get laggy.