I bought a used laptop, need advise on how to clear it out?

Question

I bought it from a company that was shutting down, everytime I try to clear something out, it tells me I dont have these privelges only my administrator has these rights. I just want to clear everything out and start new....

Answer 1

1. what is the operating system, win xp ?
2. do u have any cd / dvd's supplied with laptop
> windows or restore disk ?
__________________

very lil or no progress u can make without the disks

Answer 2

There are two ways to clean the hard drive. You can format which only removes the indexing to the drive but does not remove any data. That is how you can undelete information from a drive it just rebuilds the index.
You can Wipe the drive. This physically overwrites the data with random symbols. This destroys the data. There are several levels of wipes. A "Quick wipe" which is one pass, a "DoD Wipe" which is 8 passes, or it overwrited 7 times and a "Gutman Wipe" which overwrited 38 times. That is Black helicopter paranoid..
I recommend a "Quick Wipe" with KillDisk. It is free and can be ran from a floppy or a CD.

Answer 3

You have to log in as the administrator and/or an account with administrator privileges.

When logging into the system, login as "administrator". By Default (if you are using windows) their is no password so leave password blank and hit .

If that doesn't work try administrator as the password. If it allows you in go ahead and set you up a master account with admin priviledges, change your administrator pass to something you will remember and carry on cleaning your system.

If none of this works and you can't find an admin account to work with, you may have to recover your administrator account password in XP

Here is some information on that which may help.

Answer 4

Well, since you are in bad shape, download puppy linux 2.10 which is alleged to have NTFS write capacity, and will also load in your RAM, and then you can zip into that sucker and delete all you want to delete.

However, sounds like you need to try to log in as administrator, OR try to reset the admin password, which may require some serious work. Maybe you can find someone to do that. Or google for something like RESET ADMINISTRATOR PASSWORD. there are free utilities which may allow that.

That, if you can make it work, is probably the best idea,since then you don't have to screw things up too badly.

Oh, when I say reset I mean essentially eliminate the password.

Answer 5

I have used this program several times and it's FREE and it works very well!!! Darik's Boot and Nuke Self-contained boot floppy that securely wipes the hard disks of all computers. DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk Hethat it can detect, also prevents or thoroughly hinders all known techniques of hard disk.
Here is where to find it. Just copy and paste to brouser.----------------
dban.sourceforge.net

Answer 6

Get a hold of a Windows XP distribution or any other operating system you like then install it or reformat your laptop. The problem is your account is not an administrator that's why you don't have these priviledges.

Answer 7

The company should have given u a Restore disk, either a CD o DVD. Do a complete restore. Insert that disk or disks and follow the propmpts. U will be ok.

Answer 8

Buy a windows xp disk & try to reinstall windows. If that don't work, you got ripped off.

Answer 9

Reinstall the operating system, it will wipe the hard drive clean.

Answer 10

go here: http://www.computerhope.com/

It is an excellent resource ... free computer help! I've used it before and found it comprehensive and very easy to follow, even for beginners.