Quick Question..

[eloyman]

I'm about to sell a computer I have that's just rotting in the corner..

Is there a way to just WIPE my hardrive of all my files quickly except the programs and files that were on it when the computer was first purchased?

oh and when you answer this just go ahead and close it :]

[MadHatter]

Do you mean virtually shred your hard drive to keep any passwords or personal info safe? Either way this will work but you may need to reinstall the OS.

Or you can just reformat your C drive, do this by rebooting with your Windows CD in your drive and selecting reformat hard drive and then install Windows.


To "virtually shred" or "nuke" your hard drive, use these programs:

http://www.dban.org/

Here is some more info on it.

http://homepage.mac.com/cameranerd74/blog/...5839/index.html

[guestolo]

oh and when you answer this just go ahead and close it

Great answer MadHatter, I like Boot and Nuke also, completely wipe the drive
But, the user wants to format and clean install, not sure what computer he has
No disks. Any recovery partition?
We'll never know, as we should close this now

[eloyman]

eeh.. I don't have the OS cd or the windows key

[greazee]

get a very strong magnet and an OS cd http://images.thetechguide.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\'\' />


that way is more fun

[guestolo]

Do you have a hidden partition on it that you can start over with
What is the make/model of computer?

You can just simply make a new user account, then log off your account and delete the one your using
Delete files when prompted
Of course this isn't really secure if the user knows what there doing, but should be sufficient for others

Also, you can use a Shredder tool, to delete your files
Do this after uninstalling any programs not needed

[eloyman]

I have a dell optiplex gx620

[newbiz02]

[quote name=\'eloyman\' post=\'456069\' date=\'Jan 14 2009, 04:49 PM\']Is there a way to just WIPE my hardrive of all my files quickly except the programs and files that were on it when the computer was first purchased?[/quote]



You can't tell the wiping software to "selectively wipe" the drive and leave software alone.  
it kills everythiing.

So make sure you have your Device Drivers CD ready, before performing your clean install.

cheers

[guestolo]

eeh.. I don't have the OS cd or the windows key

I would Clean install also, if giving the computer away
But the user doesn't have CD or key
and it doesn't appear the computer has a Recovery partition

Uninstall any programs you don't need
I like to use Revo uninstaller for this, you can just use Add/remove programs

Any files you don't need, you can delete, or better yet, use a Shredder program
Such as Eraser, or again, Revo Uninstaller has one built in

After you have uninstalled programs, deleted any files/folders not needed
Make a new User account with admin privileges
Log off your account, sign into the new account, or go into safe mode and enter the hidden Admin account
Delete your user, and Delete files at the prompt

If you want to change the Registered too...... in MyComputer, it's just a registry setting