How to Clean Your Computer to Sell
If you're going to sell your computer, the most important thing to do is clean the hard drive thoroughly. This doesn't mean just deleting files, or even reformatting your hard drive. Your personal data-financial information, medical records, and anything else you've stored on your computer-can remain and is accessible to anyone with a little bit of knowledge and software. If you are selling your computer you must clean it completely, using special software and procedures.
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Things You'll Need
- Disk-wiping program such as Darik's Boot and Nuke
- CD or DVD-RW drive
- Blank CD or DVD
Instructions
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Find and download a disk-wiping program. Darik's Boot and Nuke (DBAN) is one of the most commonly used and recommended, and meets the U.S. Department of Defense's standards for erasing disks. See Resources below.
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Use a program such as CDBurnerXP (see Resources) to burn the program to a disk as an ISO file. This creates a bootable CD or DVD.
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Load the disk into the drive and restart the computer. The computer should recognize the disk you've inserted as a bootable one, and a screen will appear that reads "press any key to boot from CD." Press a key.
If you don't get the "boot from CD" screen you may have burned the disk incorrectly. Try burning it again. If you're sure you've burned it correctly, you may need to go into the computer's BIOS and change the boot sequence. You'll do this by pressing a particular key, usually "Delete," during startup. Then follow the on-screen directions to go to the "Boot Sequence" menu, and move the CD or DVD drive to the first spot, before the hard drive.
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Follow the on-screen instructions to run the program. Keep in mind that it can take several hours or as long as a full day to fully clean the drive.
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Tips & Warnings
Be sure you've saved all of your essential information from your computer before running a program such as DBAN.
