I want to keep my OS and programs on the computer when I sell it, but dont want anyone to recover my deleted programs. Is there a program that cleans the drive so that the files can not be recovered?
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I'm not sure if there is any software like that, you'd say there would be but i don't know. Did/do you save your data on a separate partition or not? If so you can just re-format that partition a few times, that should do it.
What you could do is just delete all the data and fill up your hdd with unimportant data like movies or something, and delete it again. Once your data has been overwritten once it would be very hard if not impossible to recover it again. -
i do know there are some pay software that will basically rewrite the used sectors over and over so its nearly impossible to recover. But i dont tihnk vista has anything like that built in. Ubuntu has it built in and would be nice on Vista
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I think you should keep your HDD when selling your PC.
It's the safest way. -
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Use Darik's Boot and Nuke program. This program is so good that the Department of Defense uses it on their computers when they want to permanently wipe an HD. You can even select their exact settings or select something with the level of security you want. Be warned, this process takes some time, about one day. I think CNET ran a video tutorial a little while which will help familiarize yourself with the program. Alternatively, there's an FAQ on Darik's website. Another warning, you will NOT be able to recover any data whatsoever once you execute the program. AGAIN YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO GET ANY DATA OFF OF IT.
You could also just go the fun route and take out your HD, dip it in liquid nitrogen + hammer = good times. Or add flames. -
You can read about the Gutman method here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutmann_method who is the guy who did a lot of work in this area. -
thansk for the posts, im not trying to kill my HD, i actually need the OS install to remain untouched. I just want my personal docs to be earased and not be recoverable
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I believe Windows Washer has an option to create a low level formatboot disk and you can choose the level of format to make it pretty unrecoverable.
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I uses steganos safe 2008, its also has a file "shredder", if you want to delete files and dont want them to be un-eraseable.
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The definitive way to do this is to use sdelete or Eraser which are both free. There may be other tools, but these are both free, and 1) sdelete was written by Mark Russinovich of Sysinternals, which was recently bought by Microsoft because of his brilliance, and 2) Eraser is open source under GPL, so it has been scrutinized by multiple people for its efficacy.
I recommend sdelete because it is small and simple, but it is a command-line tool. If that's not to your liking, you can use Eraser which is also good and has more of a GUI to it. The command for sdelete would be:
Code:sdelete -z c:
So manually go through and delete all of your personal files, then run the free space wipe and your disk will be clean. -
awesome ill try that. Is that command line "sdelete -z c:" the one to use for cleaning the free space? Again I want to keep my programs and OS, just clean the space that used to be occupied by my personal files.
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Evidence Eliminator will do the trick for you.
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ok thanks, i downloaded eraser and it has a nice easy button to clean free space. thanks again
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I've used Eraser for several years and it works as advertised. My steps to clean up a drive and leave the OS in place:
1. Add/remove all programs you want removed.
2. Delete all files/folders you want deleted.
3. Run Disk Cleanup, CCleaner, and defrag the hard drive.
4. Reboot and run Eraser on all free space. I've never let it overwrite 35 times (which is the default, I think) because it takes so long. Letting it run a few times should be plenty. If you're really concerned, letting it overwrite/clean the free space 10 times is fine. -
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I used to use Eraser mentioned above, and do a DoD wipe once in a while, including free space. That was in my more 'nefarious' days lol
Best way to delete files off computer before selling?
Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by s4iscool, Oct 30, 2007.