Computer Expert Needed Please

[Santa Clarita Len]

I am giving my old computer away and I would like to delete everything on the hard drive except the Windows Operating System, is this possible and if so how do I do it?

[Ken Massingale]

Drivewasher from Stompsoft will completely wipe the drive. You'll have to reinstall Windows tho.

[MilDoc]

"Deleting" files, even in Add/Remove programs, will not delete them toatally, can easily be recovered. Also, just deleting files and directories will leave a bunch of c**p in the Registry and some Win directories. Best way is as Ken said - get a secure wiping program, wipe the full drive, then reinstall Windows.

[LCHIEN]

Go into the BIOS, press delete as the computer is doing the memory tests,
most BIOS have options to format the drive. Do the long format, it should take many minutes. If it does it in 30 seconds, then you did the fast format which doesn't wipe out everything.

[25]

Just removing/uninstalling all the programs will not get rid of everything. You can try to delete everything by hand but it will just be faster in the long run to just wipe the drive and reinstall windows.

[phrog]

Norton's Wipe

Norton's Wipe program will do a DoD wipe of any files that you tell it to remove. It is very time-consuming, however, since it repeatedly writes 0's and 1's several times (you control how many times) over the parts of the hard disk where the file to be deleted is located.
Richard

[crokett]

There isn't anything that can selectively wipe the drive and leave Windows that I know of, unless Windows is installed on its own partition. I use a bootable Linux CD for this. I can boot to a running linux install from the CD then use linux to write 0s to the drive.

[Jim Padgett]

Secure delete.

Go to www.sysinternals.com website and look for the secure delete program.
You will have to know what files you can delete, but it will delete them securely.

http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/SDelete.html

[radhak]

There should a number of purge programs that would secure-delete data, and allow selection. At this you would deselect / exclude the C\windows folder, which would save the Operating System, but purge the rest of data.

Try
Data Destroyer : http://www.hermetic.ch/dd/dd.htm,

or Purge Drive at http://www.wascotech.com/purgedrive/scrnshot.html

A quick search on google also gave me this page which seems to have some good programs, but you'd need to select the folders you'd delete, in which case you should be careful to not delete the Windows folder.

[ed2kayak]

Eraser

I use eraser http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/ you will need to make a boot disc. Only safe method is to erase entire drive, then reinstall the os. It is a free utility, you can use it to securely delete files from your system on the fly also.

[scorrpio]

1. Uninstall whatever software you don't want to stay on that PC.
2. Create a new admin user account, log into that account, and now go and erase all other user accounts. Be sure to erase all their documents as well.
3. Clean out all the shared documents folders.
4. At this point, there should really be only 3 foldrs on the hard drive: Documents and Settings, Windows and Program Files. Program Files should only contain Windows-specific software (like Internet Explorer, Messener, etc) Documents and Settings should only have 'All Users' and that new admin account folders.
5. You also might want to download some registry cleaner software that essentially goes through and wipes registry entries for any software no longer present, info for deleted accounts etc. Be sure to make a restore point before running it. Then, if PC is booting normally, create a new restore point, and then delete all previous restore points.
6. Finally, you want software like DataNuker. What you are looking for is a 'free space shredder'. It goes through your hard drive free space - and REALLY deletes whatever you have recently deleted.

Of course, if you don't want to go though all that, you can just do a full reformat and reinstall Windows from scratch. You should be able to reactivate using original product key. You'll also need to reinstall whatever drivers there were: chipset, video, audio, network, etc.

[LinuxRandal]

I use Dban (Dan's boot and Nuke), as it has some overwrite options. Then reinstall Windows, if you have a valid license to go with the machine, otherwise give it Linux.

[onedash]

If you are giving it to someone you know I would delete personal files and reinstall/restore to original state. Im guessing you don't have any classified files, at least I hope not. So there really is no need to Clean it to DoD standards for Classified systems.

What is everyone doing on their computers at home to have to be so paranoid about deleting files?

[Santa Clarita Len]

Many thanks to everyone for your timely replies, I haven't quite decided which way to go but I will soon. Thanks again.

[gjat]

I used to buy, refurbish, and sell used computers. In reality, there is very little possiblility of 'sensitive' stuff on most home computers. You're giving away a used computer, no need to put alot of effort into it. We all could get struck by lightening, but we still go outside in the rain, stand by the window, etc.

Review what programs are on the computer that you want off that may have sensitive stuff. Using Windows Explorer, remove ONLY THOSE programs. Manually delete the directories that went with those programs. Delete any e-mail programs along with any data files. Delete the My Documents and other plain data.
De-frag the hard drive.
Now, re-install some big, easy to install programs that will take up alot of space.
Using windows explorer, remove those programs and any other programs you want removed.
De-frag the drive.
Go to Internet Explorer, delete history, favorites, cookies, etc.
Go to windows exploerr, delte contents of temp directories.
De-frag the drive.

This effectively removes and overwrites most stuff. I'm sure the FBI may be able to lift stuff off, but it's not likely that someone with that ability will have any desire to mess with you and would get anything that valuable.