I want to retain the operating system XP Professional as I do not have the original disks as it was preloaded on the machine. I have purchased a 2Gb memory stick to offload the data & photos I am keeping. I am seeking advice as to which program will wipe the hard drive clean.
I asked an earlier question referring to illegal images found on my pc and how to remove them. I want to ensure nothing incriminating is left on the hard drive.
This is serious - please sensible answers only.
2006-12-29 12:46:32 · 8 answers · asked by Flab 3 in Computers & Internet ➔ Software
Webroot window washer the 30 day free trial shareware version available from tucows.com or download.com will not only clean your machine, but if you want to insure you do not leave a residual image that could possibly be recaptured to incriminate you then you select the option (in that software) to WRITE OVER all the files or wipe the drive completely dry.
Whoevery you sell your computer to probably wants the operationg system so instead of formatting or wipping the drive dry erasing everything including the operating system, you could merely select the directories to wash, and write over the folders or areas where you are nervous.
Then before you sell it do a system wide search (offa the start button menu) for all picture files.
When you get the search for files box type in something like this
*.jpg
*.bmp
*.png
Or whatever the extention was of the image file you were nervous about.
Then in the results any file that comes up you can view or delete manually.
However, if the dangerous file was in a HIDDEN folder, the search for all picture bmp files *.bmp would NOT find the file because the search does not look in hidden directories.
Which is why this must be used in CONJUCTION WITH and not exclusive of the window washer program I mentioned!
2006-12-29 18:46:34 · answer #1 · answered by mileasecond 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Sell it without the Harddrive. You can go buy a 20-40 gig HD for around 30-40 bucks.
2006-12-29 20:50:57 · answer #2 · answered by goldwelp 2 · 2⤊ 0⤋
not going to recommend but ask i know its almost impossible to delete all data on a hard drive and even if you do that .its still on someone else hard drive or on the server ...and i havent found one i can trust yet but i dont and have not done anything illegal i only went to a porn site once at the insistence of a friend and it trashed my whole pc and put all kinds of stuff on it
2013-10-20 14:30:28 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Down load CC scan its free and set it up to overwrite 6 times the max and that's it. If you reformat the hard drive it can be reclaimed with the right software. So I suggest CC scan. Link below, check it out.
2006-12-29 21:04:45 · answer #4 · answered by Johnny 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
create a floppy boot disk copy the systems files to it >>
fdisk
format reboot with the floppy disk at the dos prompt which is a:\
type fdisk
A:\ fdisk (delete the partition(s) reboot again)
A:\ fdisk (create a partition use all the drive for the partition) reboot type format c:
A;\ format c:
2006-12-29 21:02:15 · answer #5 · answered by Carling 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
first get what you want off the computer. the go to Start > All programs > Accessories> system Tools > Disk cleanup
Then go back to system tools and choose System restore
2006-12-29 20:53:09 · answer #6 · answered by desalvionjr2 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
reformat the drive is the safest way, or you can download an eraser program and drop the files you want to delete and overwrite them
2006-12-29 20:49:43 · answer #7 · answered by Cailu 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
right-click local disk
format
2006-12-29 20:50:57 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋