selling my computer trying to delete all

April 2, 2009 11:24 AM

hi. i have a used pc that i will be selling and would like to get everything off of it. there are a lot of programs loaded on, and music files - but nothing i want to keep. i have a windows xp disc but when i boot up using the disc it tells me that i would have to delete the partiion to reinstall it - not sure if this is what i should do. do you have any suggestions on the best way to clean up the computer/delete all programs and files? thanks a lot for the help.
posted by matt755811 to computers & internet (14 comments total)

Yes, if you don't have anything personal on the machine requiring secure delete, then doing the partition delete & creation thing is good enough.
posted by mrt at 11:30 AM on April 2

If you'd like to get rid of everything on the drive, then deleting the partition will do what you want.

Note that this does not "securely" delete the data, in the sense that data recovery software may still be able to recover some of your files. But in a practical sense, it will give you a clean slate to work with.

If you want to securely delete the data (and if you're selling the PC, I would recommend it) look into something like Darik's Boot and Nuke.
posted by CrayDrygu at 11:30 AM on April 2 [1 favorite has favorites]

Do you want to format the disk leaving nothing, not even the operating system?
posted by kidbritish at 11:31 AM on April 2

DBAN; reinstall Windows.
posted by holgate at 11:31 AM on April 2

... the recommendations to use Darik's Boot And Nuke (DBAN) are right on the money. If that's what you want to do, matt, then here are the steps to follow:

(1) Go to the DBAN download page and download the stable release that is 'for CD and DVD media.'

(2) Burn the downloaded file, which will be a disk image (.iso) file, onto a CD or DVD. A good (free) program that you could do this with would be InfraRecorder.

(3) Once you've burned a copy of the DBAN disk, put the disk in your computer's drive and reboot it. Follow the instructions to 'delete all hard drives.'
posted by koeselitz at 12:01 PM on April 2

If there is no sensitive data such as bank records or clear text passwords, then repartitioning and reinstalling is fine.
posted by chairface at 12:01 PM on April 2

i'll try the dban program tonight. i appreciate the help everyone!
posted by matt755811 at 12:08 PM on April 2

Nthing DBAN; but be prepared to wait a while. IIRC, it took about 3 hours to clear my 40 GB drive.
posted by Simon Barclay at 12:10 PM on April 2

WAIT! Before you do that, note that DBAN will leave your computer complete empty -- without any trace of operating system at all. Make sure that your XP disk is an actual XP install disk (with installs left on it's serial number) NOT a reinstall/repair disk as sometimes ships with machines.
posted by The Bellman at 12:12 PM on April 2

... by the way, you were wondering what it meant when the XP install disk mentioned 'deleting the partition.' A partition is just a chunk of the hard drive that the operating system can set up. Whenever you see a hard drive in Windows, it will have a letter designation like C: or D:; but the drive you're actually using has to be partitioned and then formatted before you can put anything on it or use it at all. In fact, you can create more than one partition on a single hard drive; lots of people have a C:, a D:, and an E: partition on their hard drive. Many of us linux users create separate partitions for our temporary (/tmp) or personal file (/usr) folders.

Anyway: any time you install an operating system, you have to repartition to create a space on the disk for the operating system to 'live on.' That's what the XP install disk is telling you: 'I have to delete the old partition so I can make a new partition for myself to live on your hard disk.' So it's okay to let the XP disk do that - you can repartition a hard disk as many times as you want and (as long as you don't do anything crazy) you won't hurt it.

Of course, if you only repartition and reinstall, your data will be deleted, but it won't be completely erased. That's why everybody here is recommending this DBAN thing. Think of it as a piece of paper with something written on it in pencil; you can erase the writing and write something else, but if you look closely enough, you might be able to read the writing that used to be there. The only way to really be sure that you've erased something so that no one can ever read it is to write on the paper and erase it, write on the paper and erase it, over and over several times. It's the same with hard drives; you can often recover deleted data if it hasn't been written over a bunch of times. DBAN is just a utility that can erase whole hard drives by writing over and erasing them again over and over a bunch of times. I want to warn you that it's shockingly easy to get back data that's just been erased without being completely wiped out, so if you have anything at all on that hard drive that you wouldn't want anyone to know you have, you should do a secure wipe with DBAN.

Hope this helps.
posted by koeselitz at 12:17 PM on April 2

... The Bellman is spot-on; are you sure you can reinstall Windows XP with the disk you have? Is that really what you want to do?

If you'd rather just erase particular things on your hard drive, leaving the operating system (Windows XP) intact and usable, then you should use Eraser.
posted by koeselitz at 12:19 PM on April 2

(Eraser will probably also be a whole lot faster, because you won't be deleting everything.)
posted by koeselitz at 12:21 PM on April 2

honestly i'm not sure about the windows xp disc. i got it through a promotion my company was running - ms office for $5, windows xp for $10... the eraser program sounds encouraging since it sounds like i wouldn't have to delete windows and roll the dice with my xp disc. maybe this is the best solution?
posted by matt755811 at 12:39 PM on April 2

The only problem with just using eraser is that you may leave traces of your computer use lying about in cache and temp files.

If you are going the eraser route, you should run something like CCleaner first - this will wipe out all of your history and temp files, which will then be erased by eraser.

Ideally, you would delete that partition, install Windows on a fresh one and then download and run eraser as the only task you perform on the new install.
posted by davey_darling at 12:55 PM on April 2