Selling computer, reformat good enough?

[akasixcon]

I think someone has already posted this thread. I cannot find it after spending 15 minutes searching so I will just recreate the topic.

I'm planning on selling my computer tomorrow. I have windows vista ultimate installed on it right now. I'm planning to do a reformat to my old Windows XP Pro and sell it like that.

What are the chances of the person snooping in my hard drive after I reformat it? I tried several online file recovery tools and couldn't snoop any files at all even after I deleted it a minute ago. Its not common for people to look through people's old stuff right?

 

[aetherh4cker]

I've heard of people buying hard drives specifically to snoop in them... but never an entire computer.

Though, you can never know when someone will be bored and try it out anyway... or maybe be trying to recover a file they deleted themselves, and end up finding old stuff of yours.

I would personally run DBAN on it, just to be safe. Even the fastest, 1-pass method would make your machine virtually data-recovery-proof.

Odds are there is nothing to worry about... but I like to be on the safe side.

 

[peterhuang913]

http://www.techist.com/forums/f9/selling-old-computer-will-format-enough-158799/

 

[akasixcon]

So step 1: Run dban

Step 2 : install windows xp?

I heard if you wipe your hard drive then your computer won't boot or something because it doesn't have the boot file. Can somone give me the thumbs up that its safe to do this and install an OS? Last thing I want is someone cancelling on me because there is no os on the comptuer.

 

[krazyq]

have you ever heard of scrub disk?
i work with the IT dept on campus and we use it to wipe out our hdds when giving away...

you will never find a single trace of data on the hdd after running that.

 

[aetherh4cker]

So step 1: Run dban

Step 2 : install windows xp?

That's all there is to it.