How to Completely Clean a Hard Drive
If you're ready to give away your computer and you want to make sure no personal information is left on it, then you'll want to clean your hard drive. There are several methods and steps to ensure that your hard drive is clean of all information and ready to be given away or recycled. How important the data is to you will determine which steps you want to take.
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Instructions
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Delete your data. If you just want to do something like give your computer to a family member, just delete all of your data. Go into "My Documents" and any other areas you know you have saved documents, and then delete them. Also find your favorites, which will be under your username under "My Documents and Settings" in Windows Explorer, and delete this folder. If you have more than one person who uses the computer, you may have to repeat this step for every username. Your username will be whatever was assigned when Windows was installed or setup. Sometimes the username may already be set up for you as "Owner." You should also go into Internet Explorer and go to the "Tools" menu and then to "Internet Options" and clear your history. Finally, go into any temp folders you can find and delete everything inside. It may be best to run a search from the Windows startup menu and select "For Files or Folders" then enter "temp" and "temporary." Make sure you empty the recycle bin. If you're giving the computer to a family member, you may also want to reinstall Windows by restartiing your computer with the Windows CD in place, to give the new owner a clean start.
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Format your drive. If you have more concerns about your data, or if you're giving away your hard drive or selling it, it may be best to format your drive. This is a good step if you don't have a lot of data on your computer you're worried about, but you don't know who will be getting your computer and you want to be safe. Simply use a boot disk or use your Windows CD to format your hard drive. See "Additional Resources," below, for more information on using boot disks.
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Overwrite your drive with noninformation. If you are seriously concerned about personal data or credit-card information being left on your computer and you want to ensure against people who are technically capable of recovering data off of drives, then you should wipe your drive clean by using a program that will completely overwrite your drive one or more times with 0's and 1's. One such program is Sdelete, which is free from Microsoft.
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Shred your hard drive. If you are extremely worried about your data and you are worried about corporate data theft, then you can shred your hard drive with an industrial-strength shredder or hire a company that offers this service. See "Additional Resources," below, to find companies that shred hard drives.
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Tips & Warnings
Always clean your hard drive in at least some manner before you give it away to avoid exposing your personal data.
Make sure you save your data before cleaning your hard drive.
Resources
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