How Do You Clean Your Computer's Hard Drive Before Selling?

Computer hard drive

Your hard drive contains millions of files, most of them operating system files, but there are probably hundreds or even thousands of files that contain personal data that you want to remove before you sell or give your computer to another person, charity or even before throwing it out. Removing this data is simple; you just need to be sure you have all the data you want off the computer first.

Instructions

1. Copy all of the files that you want to save from the computer to a flash drive or CD. Once you clean your computer's hard drive, it will be hard to recover the files if you forgot something.

2. Restart the computer with your Windows CD in the drive. When the computer boots, if there is a message to hit the space bar to boot from the CD, hit the space bar. Accept the license agreement and continue to the installation screen.

3. Choose your current hard drive to install Windows on. Choose the format option to format the current drive. Let Windows format the drive. This may take some time and will delete all of your files. After the format, you can shut down your computer without installing Windows or if you intend to sell the drive with the Windows license, you can reinstall Windows.

Tips & Warnings

• If you are very concerned about your files, use a disk wiping program that will make it harder to recover the files.

References

• Henry Amon; Information Systems Specialist; Salisbury, Maryland