The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Clean up personal data

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by amskal, Mar 31, 2008.

  1. amskal

    amskal Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    48
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    I'm planning to sell my laptop for an upgrade.
    I need help in cleaning up my personal data from this laptop.
    I've deleted all my data, uninstall most apps, browser, etc
    Is there something else I have to do to erase my personal data?
    is there specific folders in Windows that might have login data or anything similar?
    I prefer not to format my harddrive, because I didn't get the OS DVD when I bought this and I deleted the preloaded OS from my harddrive long time ago as it took 8GB of space :D

    Thanks a million for your help :)
     
  2. qhn

    qhn Notebook User

    Reputations:
    1,654
    Messages:
    5,955
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    205
    . do u need to deliver the OS installed along with ur laptop?
    . if not, how about just drop in a new drive and be done with the worrying about personal data
    . the buyer can get her/himself an installation cd & use the laptop oca key for activation

    cheers ...
     
  3. amskal

    amskal Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    48
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    thanks for the reply

    Yeah, I plan to include the XP home that comes with the laptop.
    and it's just an old celeron laptop that I'm selling for cheap, so I don't have the budget to buy new hard drive. :-D
     
  4. qhn

    qhn Notebook User

    Reputations:
    1,654
    Messages:
    5,955
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    205
    well, in that case what u have done so far in the OP should be satisfactory; if one is not so paranoid about other peoples going thru time/pain to "recover" some deleted files

    cheers ...
     
  5. David

    David NBR Random Reviewer NBR Reviewer

    Reputations:
    7,515
    Messages:
    8,733
    Likes Received:
    7
    Trophy Points:
    206
    Kill Disk works best IMO. You may need to reinstall XP and the drivers though...
     
  6. FusiveResonance

    FusiveResonance Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    143
    Messages:
    421
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    you really should be reformatting your HDD before shipping out the unit. If i were the buyer id confrim with the seller that they are in fact going to reformat the HDD + install the OS with working drivers. Its more a point of courtesy that the buyer gets a fresh install, rather than them actually wanting to look through your data.