I am giving my laptop away to my girlfriend! My question, what do I do to "clean" it? Know what I mean merbites? I want to keep things hidden...porn and this site...lol
The Teacher
The Teacher
Giving my laptop away!
- Thread starter The Teacher
- Start date
The Teacher said:
Reformat the hard drive. That should do the trick unless she has contacts at the NSA
How computer literate are you?
I deally, when giving a computer to someone, you want to make sure its running smooth. Cause the last thing you want to do is spend a single minute trying to fix something caused by missing files etc...
If you just want to do some light "dusting" CCleaner is fine.
Quick way for me would be to:
1) Create a new user account for her.
2) Flush any restore point
3) Backup then delete your profile.
4) defrag the drive(s)
Any decent file/hd recovery software can recover files that were just deleted... Even if you format.
PS. If you decide to go the erase everything and re-install, make sure you do a full drive format during installation. Quick format can be undone depending on the hd space priviously used.
I deally, when giving a computer to someone, you want to make sure its running smooth. Cause the last thing you want to do is spend a single minute trying to fix something caused by missing files etc...
If you just want to do some light "dusting" CCleaner is fine.
Quick way for me would be to:
1) Create a new user account for her.
2) Flush any restore point
3) Backup then delete your profile.
4) defrag the drive(s)
Any decent file/hd recovery software can recover files that were just deleted... Even if you format.
PS. If you decide to go the erase everything and re-install, make sure you do a full drive format during installation. Quick format can be undone depending on the hd space priviously used.
The Teacher said:
She may not be computer savy, but may lend the computer to a friend, sell it, etc.
Better safe than sorry.
1- delete everything (all your "My documents" and other files and folders)
2- empty the Recycle Bin
3- Use this http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/download.php to "Wipe free space"
4- reformat the hard drive
5- reinstall windows
Total time: 5 minutes for steps 1 and 2. Overnight (unattended) for step 3. an hour or two for steps 4 and 5.
Last edited:
reformat is not 100%
you will get rid of the index to the files, but not the files/info themselves and any decent recovery sw can recover that data.
To get rid of the data, one would actually need to write over that data a few times with random 1s and 0s: http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/download.php.
don't do this too often, it is hard on the disc.
you will get rid of the index to the files, but not the files/info themselves and any decent recovery sw can recover that data.
To get rid of the data, one would actually need to write over that data a few times with random 1s and 0s: http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/download.php.
don't do this too often, it is hard on the disc.
hornypilgrim...PM me and tell me more? Like, what is the cost? How effective is the software? What does it actually do and what is the laptop like after? Do I have to reinstall windows? Should I save or email the files I want to my new laptop? Stuff like that...or feel free to post in this thread! Thanks for your help!
Bucky said:
Don't even think of doing that! The tech might copy your information!
There have even been some hidden camera investigations this year which revealed that the first thing bored techs do when they "fix" your computer is to search/copy all the "interesting" files they find.
http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/2007/10/03/geeks/
If your financial, health, or personal life info is on your computer, follow the steps I outlined above.
The Teacher said:
All the steps outlined above, and the software mentioned, are free (*).
The only thing needed is 10 minutes of your time, or 2 hours of your time if you want to give her the laptop loaded with Windows.
(*) Except for Microsoft Windows, which presumably came with your laptop.
This is the quickest method and is more than secure enough for the majority of people in your situation. A complete disk wipe would of course be the most seure method but it would take considerably more than 2 hours to re-install Windows, configure all the drivers, then install all the available Windows updates, followed by re-installing your software...
An other thing to look at is if you have your original restore CDs that came with your laptop. If you do, just boot from that restore CD and follow the instructions. It will put your laptop back in the original state it was in when you purchased it. Other than neverbored's suggestion, this is probably the most efficient method.
eraser is free
I am sure that are other free programs out there that will do the job too. Nothing to do except to load it and hit "erase", the program will go to all the unused parts of the disk and write over it with random 1s and 0s a few times. But this of course won't write over all the history/cache files that you have forgotten/neglected to delete first, because those spaces on the hard d are "in use".
The best is do a reformat and load OS, then immediately run Eraser. That way, other than the OS, there is no cached/history/stored/temp data anywhere, you have totally wiped the rest of the hard disk clean.
I am sure that are other free programs out there that will do the job too. Nothing to do except to load it and hit "erase", the program will go to all the unused parts of the disk and write over it with random 1s and 0s a few times. But this of course won't write over all the history/cache files that you have forgotten/neglected to delete first, because those spaces on the hard d are "in use".
The best is do a reformat and load OS, then immediately run Eraser. That way, other than the OS, there is no cached/history/stored/temp data anywhere, you have totally wiped the rest of the hard disk clean.
I am a tech, yeah, i always look for fun stuff first! it's one of the perks, the last suggestion is probably the best on here, if you know a tech you can trust the BEST plan is to replace the hard drive. She'll never find anything incriminating on a fresh disk. Swapping drives on a laptop is tricky though and should have a pro do it. another idea that might work, is to look up your make and model on the OEMs site, find out the exact hard drive that is in it, then download a utility from their website, and run a full format with that. it should do a zero fill, and wipe everything clean. Then run your restore cd, if you don't have a restore cd, or windows disk that came with your box, it might already be on the hard drive.
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