Selling my Laptop?

[:Ace:]

Hello, Answerbankers! Long time no see...

I'm planning on selling my laptop soon, in favour of a MacBook Pro.
I've heard all sorts of stories about Hackers finding your old details on your computer, So, I guess my question is...

How's best to clear my laptop of any of my former history?

Thanks!

Oh, and it's a Toshiba Equim A200, If that helps...

Cheers

[zzxxee]

i will give you 50p any advances??????

[:Ace:]

Cheeky!

[VHG]

The only REAL way of being safe is to WIPE your hide drive and then do a Windows recovery or reinstall.

The problem is that if you just delete a file in Windows it stays on the hard disk so can be easily recovered.

And anyway, Windows keeps all sorts of secret files and hidden files that most of us dont even know about that you can never REALLY know a hard disk is clear of personal data unless you ZAP it.

So your first plan of action is to make sure you have a recovery CD so you can reinstall Windows after you have zapped the hard disk.

If you DO have a recovery CD then download DBAN from here

http://www.dban.org/

Make a DBAN "boot" CD and then boot from that CD and get it to do its business. DBAN will write over the hard disk with all sorts of rubbish over and over again until there is no chance of recovering any files.

This will delete any recovery partition on the disk so make sure any recovery CD you have is a full Windows recovery CD.

When that has finished then use your Windows recovery CD to reinstall Windows.

May sound a lot but it is the only way to be certain you have removed all your personal data.

[VHG]

Some people may say a simple format of the hard disk and a reinstall of Windows is enough.

For the casual hacker it probably is, but even after a format it is possible to recover personal data off a PC.

The police and security service can recover data on a hard disk that has been formatted many times.

[:Ace:]

Cheers for that, a couple of questions though?

DBAN will completely destroy my OS and I'll have to reinstall it from the recovery disk?

and

When I do reinstall, will the laptop have all the original programmes on that it came with?

and

How much would be deleted if I just restored the computer back to factory settings? DBAN seems a bit extreme to me. "Boot and Nuke!" haha


Thanks

[VHG]

If you restore the computer back to factory settings that will probably be enough.

I sort of covered that in my second append.

A recovery should wipe the hard drive, and then do a clean reinstall on Windows.

That will be enough to deter the casual hacker.

[trish432]

If you do a restore to factory settings your original programmes will still be there, if you use the windows cd you will lose them.

[ACtheTROLL]

having your bank account stripped or your id cloned is probably more exreme wouldn't you think?

dban or bang bang (with hammer) are the only two way I know....

and you can still recover with the right kit ... its expensive and time consuming ... so you hope that they won't bother

if you are selling the machine you want it back at factory

normally that includes all the trial progs that were included ... if you want to include any licensed software that's ok ... but unless you know who you are selling to .... you don't know who you are selling to

could be fine ... could be an arch criminal .... could be traiding standards ... best to be legal - software is getting a lot of attention at the mo

[:Ace:]

Ok, cheers guys.

I was planning on selling to a colleague, but he's notorious for not paying up...so it might end up in AdTrader.

I'll not worry too much though...

Cheers for all your advice