I want to destroy everything on it so it would be just like new.
2006-11-24 10:26:03 · 7 answers · asked by x64impalassx 2 in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Laptops & Notebooks
SMASH IT WITH A HAMMER!
And then buy a new computer... actually I have no idea. Sorry.
2006-11-24 10:28:15 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 3⤋
RAM: don't worry too much about ti retaining any traces, once you turn it off it should be gone.
FLASH: your computer might have received a "BIOS" upgrade or something like that. It's very hard to undo that, but your manufacturer might have information on how to do it. [Generally they only keep upgrade information around] I'd recommend against trying this as you risk a useless machine if it should fail somehow (all you need is a power outage during the process of writing a new flash image).
HARDDISK: Most likely what you are looking for to get erased. Typically you ned to know what you are defending against.
- NSA, FBI, CIA or others with a huge amount of money willing to go the extra mile: they might be able to recover pieces of data that you cannot see nor write to (e.g. failed sectors are generally put out of service by the drive and replaced with spares, but ... they aren't addressable by the computer any longer while they might just contain that one piece you do not want them to have.) The military around the world have rules on how to treat harddisks before they are released to prevent such problems in unclassified use (they typically will be stricter the more secret the data was) E.g. in the US take a look at DoD 5220-M for some background for what the military do.
- If you have just confidential data you want to be hard to recover but not taking it up against 3 letter agencies, doing a full format or, better yet booting from a linux CD and overwriting the device with random data. will yield a good result. Do not do a 'fast" format, it'll not erase the disk itself.
- If you are not concered about data on the machine: you can just reinstall windows and delete the partitions while doing it, that should install it from scratch again.
2006-11-24 11:06:06 · answer #2 · answered by anonymous 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If you want to completely remove everything from your computer, the second answer is right: format the hard drive and reinstall the operating system. You should not do this until after you are sure that you have backup copies of everything you'd want to keep. You should also not do this unless you know what you are doing. If you don't know what you are doing, get a friend to help you.
2006-11-24 10:41:47 · answer #3 · answered by drshorty 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
you need to format your hard drive and reinstall windows or whatever operating system you are using. You can do this by inserting the installation cd and rebooting your computer. Say you want to install and when it ask you which partition you want to reinstall it on, delete the partition you see and create a new one using the defualt size. Then follow the other instructions. Good Luck
2006-11-24 10:28:35 · answer #4 · answered by piemat 2 · 1⤊ 2⤋
The PC memory is volatile, meaning once the pc is turned off all information written there is deleted.
2006-11-24 10:37:18 · answer #5 · answered by agent-X 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
have a brand new hard drive put in. take out your old one and buy a bigger one then load your operating system on it. it will be blanker than the face of a botox patiant
2006-11-24 10:29:22 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 2⤋
burn it
2006-11-24 10:33:44 · answer #7 · answered by Louie 3 · 0⤊ 2⤋