How to Delete a Hard Drive History
Instead of simply getting rid of an old computer when buying a new one, many people choose to sale their old computers on classified sites. Although this can be an effective way to make money, it can also unnecessarily make a person vulnerable to having important, personal information stolen.
The best way to make sure that the person buying your old computer is not able to access your personal files is to delete the hard drive history before selling the computer.
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Instructions
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Delete the Internet history. A person who is using Internet Explorer can do so by clicking on "Internet Options" on the "Tools" menu. Select "Delete all . . ." Different items can be deleted from the history pane here. In the same window, cookies can be deleted. Select "Delete Cookies" and delete any of the items that need to be deleted by using the view files button. Continue by clicking on the "Delete Temporary Files" and "Delete Passwords" sections. Doing this will completely erase the Internet use history. This means that bank account numbers, user names and passwords will be deleted.
In Firefox, press ctrl+shift+delete to find a list of the Internet elements that can be deleted. When the list pops up, check all options and click "Clear Private Data Now." -
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Install Spybot. Spybot is a free program that is able to help completely clear out information that is stored in the computer's registry. It also cleans the search history and any opened or saved documents on the hard drive. Spybot can be downloaded online.
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Run Spybot. Start up the Spybot software and click on "Check for Problems." The software will then generate a report. When the report appears, right click on one of the entries and click "Select all." Then click on the "Fix All problems" button." This will completely delete all tracks on the hard drive.
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Decide if you want to continue. For most, the aforementioned steps are enough to protect your identity if you sell a computer to another person. However, there are a few more steps that can be taken to ensure that even a hacker is unable to access the stored history. To continue to delete a hard drive history, there are a couple of more steps to be taken.
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Click on the Start menu and then "My Computer." Next, right click on the C:\ drive and click "search." The purpose of this is to find all "Index.dat" files stored on the computer. These files include codes associated with deleted files on the computer. After search is clicked, select "Files and Folders." Type "index.dat" into the file name field and press "Enter."
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Insert zeroes. Once all of the index.dat files come up, they need to be changed so that a person who has access to the computer will not be able to trace the code back to bank sites, passwords or user names. This can be simply done by replacing the file names with zeroes. For example, if the code were 330 7644, it would be substituted with 000 0000. This step can be tedious, but it is a surefire way to protect the computer from hackers.
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Sell your computer with confidence. The hard drive history has been successfully deleted.
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Tips & Warnings
Instead of manually deleting a hard drive history, a person could choose to have the history deleted by a software program such as CCleaner, Window Washer or Tracks Eraser Pro. Do a run through of different files and folders after the process is complete to ensure that it was done correctly.
Do not sell a computer without cleaning it up. Even a person who only knows a little bit about operating systems could find information on a computer that has not been cleaned up.
