PC question

[skeeter@ccia.com]

I want to sell my old computer. There are about $4000 worth of games, programs etc installed on it I don't want to loose. Since I do not want the new owner to gather information such as my bank numbers, websites visited, log in information, passwords etc or any other personal information that might be on it, is there a free program I can wipe the hard drive clean without destroying the programs installed on it? Should I just remove the hard drive and install a new one? Would this remove personal information? Evidence wipe is about the only program I have found that will clean it enough to sell but I think if I use it I will have to buy a new start up disc. Any suggestions? I don't want to spend the $100 they want for an eraser....any free downloads?

[GoodOlBoy]

Free eraser? Yes put the operating system disk in the drive and reformat it. After it is reformatted run all the windows updates, etc. and then defragment that hard drive.

Thats about as good as it gets. Otherwise yank the hard drive and don't sell it with the computer (Which means ya probably won't sell the computer) Keep in mind even on a formatted drive there ARE labs that can recover data, but since I seriously doubt anybody is going to send your used machine to the FBI reformatting is probably your best and cheapest bet.

GoodOlBoy

[hobbles]

Mornin skeeter@ccia.com
My opinion,,
Buy a new HD for your old puter, put it in and and sell it, Keep your old hard drive and Install it into you new puter,, Change your settins on the new hd that's in your new puter to secondary,,>pins< Go into your bio and set the HD that's in it to your secondary HD, and leave you old HD as you primary, ((make sure you don't have a windows dir in your secondary HD)) Now copy all your files onto your new HD, (not your windows dir.) now you hava a compleet back up of your puter,, On reboot, turn off the secondary HD,, No virus can now get to it,, it's safe, Keep it updated (back it up often)

[hobbles]

Mornin GoodOlBoy
Don't a "format c: \u" erase every thing that's on a hard drive?? The U is unconditional format

[GoodOlBoy]

In DOS yes it was format c: /u
if you wanted a system bootable drive it was format c: /s /u

With XP you just boot to the CD and you can reformat from there. Easy peasy.

Keep in mind Skeeter you cannot move software it has to be reinstalled (Although if you move the directory then reinstall over it often it will save your settings. . . . both the good and the bad ones.)

GoodOlBoy

[skeeter@ccia.com]

I thank you gentlemen...

[skeeter@ccia.com]

With all the paypal and other scams going on and I have been fighting between 2 banks that one sent money to the other but it was never received by second. So now they both want me to make payments....ka..Getting that in order but what got me to thinking was a quick story about an E-bay deal that somehow a guy got taken in a computer sale amongst other things..the guy did get the computer but got into the files and blasted all the personal information left by the scam artist on the web until he paid up.....so I figured it would not be safe to let family pictures or other personal ID info out there for anyone with some knowledge to gather..can't trust anyone anymore..thanks.

[8X56MS]

hard drives are cheap. I would pull the old drive, and keep it. Buy a new one, and install, load the OS, and sell it.

[skeeter@ccia.com]

So the hard drive is where all the information is stored?..Will do.