How to wipe a computer's hard drive?

Question

hello i have a dell dimension e510 and i want to sell it on ebay and want to know how i can erase all of my files from it but still have the OS on it, i no longer have the OS install disk and i have tryed using the system restore program and it wll only let me restore 2 months back but not to the original settings when i bought the computer
i am running windows XP
please help will award 10 point to the person that helps me accoplish my task

Answer 1

Turn on the computer.


When the Dell splash screen appears during the computer startup process, press and hold the key, and then press the key. Then, release both keys at the same time.

NOTE: Press the key and the key one time only. If these keys are pressed more than one time, a keyboard error may occur. If this problem occurs, repeat steps 3 and 4.

The Dell PC Restore by Symantec window appears.


Click the Restore button. Alternatively, press the key to highlight Restore, and then press the key.

A warning message appears, stating that all data will be lost.


Click the Confirm button or press the key to highlight Confirm, and then press the key.

The Progress window appears. After the restore process starts, Dell PC Restore by Symantec usually takes only 8 to 10 minutes to finish.

When the restore process is complete, the following message appears:
The system recovery process was successful


Click the Finish button or press the key to highlight Finish, and press the key.

The computer restarts.
The software is now installed as it was when the computer was first received . If the issue is not resolved, click the following link to contact a Dell support technician:

Answer 2

Try this, as you boot the computer hold the Ctrl key and tap F11 once. Dell sets up a small partition that holds the restore files on it. Sometimes it takes several tries to get it to work. This will put the computer back to it's original out-of-the-box configuration.

Most of the other suggestions will wipe the OS also.

I just had to do this w/ my laptop and I think it took me about 10 or 12 tries. It's all in the timing.

Answer 3

If you would like to erase and wipe all information from your harddrive, I reccommend you use Active@ KillDisk. This powerful and compact DOS software allows you to destroy all data on hard and floppy drives completely, excluding any possibility of future recovery of deleted files and folders. This is security software for unrecoverable data elimination for any computer capable of booting in DOS mode from floppy drive. It uses access to the drive's data on a physical level via BIOS bypassing logical drive structure organization, thus it does not matter operating systems and file systems located on the machine, it can be DOS, Windows 95 / 98, Windows NT / 2000 / XP, Linux, Unix for PC. Active@ KillDisk conforms to US Department of Defense clearing and sanitizing standard DoD 5220.22-M. You can be sure that once you clean up with Active@ KillDisk, sensitive information is purged out forever. We highly recommend you to run this FREE utility for the hard and floppy drives you want to dispose of, recycle, re-use, sell or donate to somebody.

Please note: If the CIA or FBI is after you, destroy the hard drive. It is possible to recover data even if it has been erased and written over many times.

Answer 4

Go to http://download.com and search for "disk wipe". You should find several free programs that will wipe the disk by overwritting ever part of it 3 to 4 times with random letters. Running a wipe program can take a while, depending on how large the hard drive is.

Answer 5

You have to use a disk wiper program like killdisk. If youjust reformat it, you data is still on the hard drive. Get a boot disk, or a bootable thumb drive and boot to DOS and run a DOD standard disk wiper.

Answer 6

I would suggest downloading something like Ultimate Boot CD ( http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ ) and running one of the wiping tools on there (like Darik's Boot and Nuke). It's easy and effective, but it will take a while.

Answer 7

system restore disk should restore back to factory defaults you need to boot off the disk,delete partition and reinstall new.

Answer 8

go to majorgeeks.com, look fr one program called "Eraser".

It is able to erase all sign of data and rewrite wth 1&0.

James C