What do you call 'clean up'? Are you paranoid and want things ripped to shreds or would you be content to reformat the hard drive and re-install windows? Had you even thought of that much work and were leaning more towards just removing any personal data?

Simplest way for most folk would be to use a Win98 startup floppy to wipe and reformat the hard drive. Then re-install windows and any other program you wish to part with.

Safest way, give it without a hard drive but that creates expense for the recipient and makes little sense.

I want to do whatever it takes so my personal data cannot be retrieved after I donate the computer.

Hi, owbist !

Apologies for jumping in here with a newbie type question, but I was wondering... You said "Are you paranoid and want things ripped to shreds or would you be content to reformat the hard drive and re-install windows?"

I had always thought reformatting the hard drive *did* pretty much rip things to shreds. (Of course, I'm not2bright.) What is actually left after a reformatting and reinstallation of an OS that could be shredded ?

Just formatting the drive won't prevent the determined from gleaning information from it.
There are several programmes that will scrub your hard drive clean and make it harder to retrieve information..
DriveWasher is one.
If you're really paranoid there are other options:
Degauzing, attach a Thermite grenade to it or drop it in the lake. But as owbist said this would create an expense for the recipient.

HD blasters of various kinds do fine but if you want it done right it takes a VERY long time. And would you really be sure anyway? HD's are cheap. Remove it and destroy it.

Another alternative is to go to the hard drive maker's site and download a program to write zeros to the drive.

Never tried it but have frequently read about this being very effective.

Personally I tend to think most folks would do just fine with a reformat of the entire drive. Do it twice before loading an operating system if it makes you feel better. But of course that is a personal thought not necessarily a fact :-)

In hindsight, I should have gotten this info before offering to donate it. Thanks everyone for your advise.

So, if I understand the above comments, if I were to put my HP through a complete system recovery (where the entire main "C" partition of the harddrive is "wiped" -- if that's the right word -- and the information from the D recovery partition is recopied onto the C drive) that still does not remove all traces of personal information. Only these other programs you all have mentioned above would do such a thing. Is that correct ?

Not2bright you have to decide your comfort level in all this stuff. There are worriers and the 'Damn the torpedoes' crowd in all aspects of life but especially around computers. If you feel more comfortable then download the Win98 Setup floppy and format your C:\ drive before doing a restore.

Personally I would have burned a CD of my D:\ drive first - just in case........ Actually I feel all owners of name brand computers should burn the back up partition to a CD in case the hard drive fails otherwise you have no operating system to install once the hard drive is replaced.

Deleting things only removes the pointers that the computer uses to find that stuff you delete so that anything else can write over that space on the hard drive. For most users that is probably enough because most of us here would not be able to retrieve your information. Skilled people would and could of course but do you have data that sensitive? Not likely.

owbist,

Thanks for the comments.

You're right. I really don't have data *that* sensitive. But I always wonder about "someone" being able to recover information from online purchases or something (credit card numbers and such). But I guess deleting things as you said would be enough. If not, I can always do things the old fashioned way (with an anvil and sledgehammer). :-)

I downloaded a free program called Eraser, that I believe writes all "free" areas of the HDD. I've never tested it, and don't know where I got it, Google can find I bet.

As for needing a back-up in addition to the restore/cover factory disk. That's what I think I read, I can say I've replaced a HDD in a laptop and used the factory CD to restore Windows XP. I haven't yet tried to get the updates, is that the point at which I'll be short on what's needed to pass authentication with Micro Soft? The XP works fine as loaded. I did a dual load and also have Linux on that HDD, both seem to operate fine.

cactus,

You can find the program that jerry is talking about here:Eraser

I use 'Eraser' version 5.84 for deleting sensitive active files, but it can also be used to erase disk free space with several wipe options. I haven't used it to 'erase' free space yet.

Look in the 'Eraser' toolbar in the 'Edit' menu 'Preferences'/'Erasing'- 'Unused Disk Space' tab.

Here's a few others for wiping drives: Active Killdisk
Sure Delete

Witz