How can I format and clean a laptop before selling it?

teri groesbeck December 23, 2011

I’m selling my laptop and I need to format my laptop so nothing of mine is left on it. How can I do it?

  1. Jeff Fabish
    December 23, 2011 at 9:37 pm

    Teri,

    Please see a reccent question, "How can I completely erase all data from a hard drive?".

    - Jeff

  2. FIDELIS
    December 23, 2011 at 9:26 pm

    Hello, best thing is to use the software somebody else mentioned before.  Make sure to back your stuff up before doing this.

    Darik's Boot and Nuke
    http://www.dban.org/

    Download ISO  image and burn it to a CD.  Once CD is burned, start computer from CD/DVD drive to run the software.  It can take some time to finish specially if it is a hard drive with big storage.  Once disk is low level formatted, you can install the operating system

  3. Anonymous
    December 23, 2011 at 7:39 pm

    you can delete the files from the hard drive then if you have windows cd boot on it and choose format.

  4. Mulder
    December 23, 2011 at 5:50 pm

    You want to use DBAN (Darik's Boot and Nuke) to securely erase everything on your hard drive. http://www.dban.org/

     

  5. Tina
    December 23, 2011 at 4:15 pm

    Teri,

    please check out the solutions to this question:
    How can I clean a laptop before donating it?

    As well as this article:
    5 Things You Must Check Before Disposing of Old Computers