Deleting XP

[Brtnboarder495]

I'm preparing to sell my "High Performance PC System". Anyways, I want to delete my copy of XP and delete anything that's on my HD. How do I go about doing this?

Thanks!

 

[Grievearz]

Run it over with your car.

or

Format the Hard Drive.

 

[Brtnboarder495]

This is what i did, in the windows installation I "deleted" the partition

this deleted XP for sure, but my real concern is if it deleted all files too, so thats its basically a brand new HD. is this what it infact is?

 

[carnageX]

Formatting does not rid your HDD of your files. Formatting only allows the files to be overwritten, and not be accessible (unless by recovery program). If you really want to get rid of them FOREVER, use a drive erasing program such as Boot 'n Nuke or KillDisk. I know for sure that Boot 'n Nuke uses military-grade wiping techniques =P.

 

[Brtnboarder495]

hmm, well the files on the computer were really only games and 1000 songs. no credit card data or important files, thats all on my laptop. so i guess that if someone had the free time to go about and retrieve that kind of stuff, then they can go ahead, but they need a CD for the games in most cases (yea they're are cracks, but whatever), and the songs are mine but i mean its not as if we dont have enough of that in the world anyways.

i dont understand the concept of how the partition is fully deleted and empty, files can still be retrieved . how can one install something in space which is still "taken"? some computer stuff like this confuses me.

 

[veg1992]

well deleting the partition isn't gonna format it... after you delete the partition, make a new one.... and it'll force you to reformat...

 

[peterhuang913]

hmm, well the files on the computer were really only games and 1000 songs. no credit card data or important files, thats all on my laptop. so i guess that if someone had the free time to go about and retrieve that kind of stuff, then they can go ahead, but they need a CD for the games in most cases (yea they're are cracks, but whatever), and the songs are mine but i mean its not as if we dont have enough of that in the world anyways.

i dont understand the concept of how the partition is fully deleted and empty, files can still be retrieved . how can one install something in space which is still "taken"? some computer stuff like this confuses me.

When you delete the partition, you are techinically reediting the way the HD reads itself. It pretends that that data is gone, so it cannot be accessed. But with recovery programs, the HD will scan itself and pretend that it actually has data on it. Deleting a partition is like erasing a public record, but the actually person is out there somewhere.

When you install something, the hard drive overwrites on a spot that it thinks that nothings there. When you have a partition on a space, the HD will only write in the free spaces. But when that space is unknown, it just writes over it. So the space is not taken, it is there and can be overwritten at anytime. One might ask, when I delete a file what happens to it. When you delete a file, the record of it is erased. The data is still there. To get rid of the data, you need a program to tell the HD to overwrite the sectors in that area with 0's. Formatting is similar but sometimes the data can still be recovered.

 

[Grievearz]

Unless you're selling your computer to someone who works for the NSA, a full format will render your data deleted enough. Is it possible to recover it, possibly. Is it possible for a normal person with software to recover it? No.

 

[Brtnboarder495]

Thanks for all the feedback and tips. As I already said, any data they could require would be utterly useless to them, and as some of you already said, the chances of someone being able to do that or having the time and drive to do that, is very small. I think I'll be safe without purchasing permanent deletion software.