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    Giving away an old notebook - best way to "clean it out" short of fresh install?

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by beyondthesmile, May 11, 2011.

  1. beyondthesmile

    beyondthesmile Notebook Geek

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    Hi all,

    I am going to give one of my notebooks to a friend. What's the best way to completely clear it out of my data, short of a fresh install?

    I know the person and don't think they are malicious and going to try to do anything like discover my CC #s or anything like that. It is more for peace of mind. I've done the obvious things like clearing out my files and uninstalling programs they won't use as well as running Ccleaner. Is there anything else I need to do?

    Thanks!
     
    beyondthesmile, May 11, 2011
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  2. ikovac

    ikovac Cooler and faster... NBR Reviewer

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    If you had your own account enable the built in administrator account. Login as (built in) administrator. Delete your personal account if you have one and choose to delete all data in connection to your account. This way it will delete a lot more than you usually see as an user (effectively whole folder in documents and settings). Leave a new owner to login as an built in administrator and create his own account.
     
    ikovac, May 11, 2011
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  3. beyondthesmile

    beyondthesmile Notebook Geek

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    Great, thank you so much!
     
    beyondthesmile, May 11, 2011
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  4. Rodster

    Rodster Merica

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    I personally would use a program like dban or killdisk just to make sure.
     
    Rodster, May 11, 2011
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  5. ikovac

    ikovac Cooler and faster... NBR Reviewer

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    ikovac, May 11, 2011
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  6. hakira

    hakira <3 xkcd

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    DBan and reinstall windows is the best way to be sure.
     
    hakira, May 11, 2011
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  7. HTWingNut

    HTWingNut Potato

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    Yeah, I would never give away or sell any laptop with a hard drive/ssd that hadn't been nuked with at least one pass and had a fresh install on it. Even if you trust the person you're giving it to, it's completely out of your control, and if they're not careful, someone else could steal it, etc.

    If you really don't want to do it, then ccleaner with all options selected more or less (be careful of what you select) will turn your machine basically into a fresh install state. However it can also break a lot of things too.
     
    HTWingNut, May 11, 2011
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  8. pinksick

    pinksick Notebook Enthusiast

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    I'd use disk wipe, it can COMPLETELY formats the disk so the next person will not able to recovery any of your personal information even with commercial hard drive recovery tools. Just use one pass zeros.
     
    pinksick, May 13, 2011
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  9. Deks

    Deks Notebook Prophet

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    If you want to avoid doing a fresh install, then you'd have to remove all of the programs and personal info from the present install and run CCleaner to wipe the free space.
    Though to be honest, I think a fresh install of Win 7 SP1 with all of the basic things such as MSE, MBAM, Flash, Java, QT Lite, Chrome/FF (or IE9) and Shark codec pack for WMP would be a faster way (after that, conduct free space Wipe and you're good to go).
     
    Deks, May 13, 2011
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