I’m in the process of getting a new computer and I’m going to give my old computer to a younger sister in college. I work in human services, work off my home computer a lot, and have several files with sensitive information and the like (child welfare cases, abuse reports, etc). I need to wipe the computer clean of all files and possibly internet sites (although most are secure sites…I’m not sure if that matters) before I give the computer away.
Is there anyway I can clean it off, but leave the OS and “usual” programs on it? (like word, excel, etc). My sister isn’t a computer wiz, so I doubt she’d be able to recover anything, but to keep my own butt covered, I don’t want the confidential stuff I’ve had on there to be visible in any way.
Why not just do a format and fresh reinstall of the software you want her to have? (Assuming you have all of your properly licensed install disks, of course.)
Reinstall the OS, and specify that the setup program format the disk. Not foolproof, but good enough for your purposes. Reinstall the applications only if you aren’t overly fastideous about copyright…
Do NOT just format the drive. This does not remove the actual files you had on the drive, just the pointers to the files. Anyone with a smattering of computer knowledge could easily recover your sensitive data.
There are many inexpensive or even free utilities which will completely wipe your disk. I haven’t used them, and can’t make a specific recommendation, but a few seconds with Google will turn up several options.
Then you’ll have to re-install the OS and any programs you want to sell with the system.
To be honest, it’s faaaar easier to just reformat and reinstall both the OS and MS Office. This does require both of the installation disks. However, if that’s a major problem, (due to not having the disks) you’ll just need to figure out where everything is stored and delete it all. Then, to make sure it’s not recoverable, defragment your hard drive. (right click on the C drive, select properties, then select tools. Under tools click defragment now. A window pops up. Choose the drive you want to defrag, and click dfragment.) After that if you want to go uber crazy, you could use Norton Clean Sweep to make sure there is no data left on the free space you just defragmented. (time consuming, and probably unnecessary). The web stuff is pretty easy. Before you defrag just delete all cookies, clear the history, and delete temporary internet files. (go to internet explorer, hit tools, then internet options… it’s pretty self explainatory there).
Also, you can delete all of your bookmarks if you want. Just go to favorites, organise favorites and delete away. After all of that, there shouldn’t be anything she can recover. The only problem is if things are stored in folders, and you don’t know the location of that folder. That’s why I suggest reformatting, but it’s up to you.
You’d have to wipe the drive and then re-install Windows, Office, etc. As BrotherCadafel hints, there are copyright and licensing issues with leaving software on computers that you give away or sell.
Just formatting the drive isn’t enough - a format simply wipes the file tables, but leaves the data out there, wherever it was, and it’s trivial for anyone who wants it to retrieve it. Happily, there are a number of free utilities to thoroughly erase data.
Aother option is to get a new hard drive for the PC and physically destroy the other one, but that may be a bit extreme, even though it’s what I usually wind up doing here.
For the purposes of the OP, reformatting is probably good enough. Yes, some of the data could be recovered if it wasn’t overwritten by the installation, but the machine is going to his sister, and in any case, we’re not talking about nuclear secrets, here.
For this purpose, a format and reinstall is more than enough.
If you want to save some time, just delete all applications and personal files. Remember to use the programs own uninstall method to remove it. Clear out the history/cache files of IE and such.
Then just fill the disk up with lots and lots of copies of the biggest safe file(s) you have on it. Delete the copies.
Note that a format and reinstall will completely overwrite key filesystem tables that will make it very hard to recover large complete files later. You can find fragments of files, but putting them back together is a brain killer.
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Does that apply to the software that was originally installed on the machine when it was purchased, like the OS?
Additionally, if there was some software that the original owner had purchased, can that software be included in the transfer, assuming that the original owner didn’t keep the software for use on another machine? (i.e., gives the software disks to the new owner?)
Bill Gates & others like to claim that it does, that the license to use the software is restricted to the original machine and the original owner. But I’ve never heard of an actual court ruling that agreed with their claim.
run Eraser on any individual files you want gone. Do at least a 7X overwrite with pseudorandom data.
then defrag the machine, and then
run Eraser again on the free hard drive space, at least a 7X overwrite with pseudorandom data, as above (this may take a half-hour or more). Be sure to set it to get the cluster tips also. Then
The End. Nobody’s getting them files back, period.
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