Desktop Computer Packages

How to prepare a computer for sale?

I'm selling my laptop on ebay. what should i do (delete) in order to protect my privacy. i'm worried that a hacker or pedofile will buy it and criminal activities will be traced back to me.

Public Comments

1. You'll need to buy software that will write over all your data. Mcafee security suite privacy will do this, although there are probably other, cheaper options. The only 100 percent guaranteed way to destroy your data is to physically destroy the hard drive ie wreck your laptop.
2. My son is a computer tech, he said you have to totally wipe your hard drive at least 7 times, he resells computers and he don't trust anyone, so he wipes everything 15 times, may be a bit excessive, but he wants it totally clean, other than that the only other way is to sell it without a hard drive or to replace the hard drive. Good Luck
3. sell it with out the hardrive or format it you cant sell a computer with a os on it anyways on ebay i sold my notebook in jan it takes alot of time and work to get info off of a formated hardrive but if your really worried bout it take the harddrive out and sell it
4. The Operating System, usually Microsoft Windows, is licensed to you. So theoretically a new user of the machine will have to buy their own version. With this in mind the easiest way to give yourself peace of mind is to remove the hard drive and replace it with a new one. Obviously you will have transfered the data to your new machine first. You can chose to put in a new hard drive of the same capacity or a greater capacity (to make it more saleable) or even ask the prospective buyer. Alternatively, download this free utility called 'Eraser' from: http://www.eraser.heidi/eraser This can be configured to overwrite (erase) the contents of the hard disk. But remember that the O.S. is still licenced to you. If you want to subsequently destroy your old hard disk the most reliable tools are an electric drill, HSS bits, and a hefty hammer to break up the platter of the drive.
5. Wipe the hard drive or sell it without the hard drive. Most people who are smart do that anyway. I insist on ALL the licenses if I buy a system preloaded with software. If I don't see the licenses included, it affects what I am willing to bid for the system. Without licenses, I wipe the hard drive when I get it. Sometimes I upgrade the hard drive anyway....
6. You need to do a total wipeout of the hard drive, If the os is XP or 2000 turn on computer press F8 boot to command prompt type help it will tell you how to format drive. If your os is below 2000 you need to run Fdisk then format drive