Hard Drive Question

[Arbiter]

If one were to sell their PC, what would be the best way to wipe the hard drive or reset it to factory settings to delete the information? Would the system recovery disc do that?

 

[Stevo808]

System recovery disc will wipe out the data but its still retrievable with the proper software, if someone actually wanted to. If your really paranoid you can download hirens and use one of the few tools to have a cleaner wipe at it.

 

[Arbiter]

Do you know which tool I should use for that? They have a ton of different tools there.

 

[Lexluethar]

Boot Nuke will completely wipe the drive and make any data on the drive not readable.

As for 'restoring' the factory settings, you have to have a recovery disk or recovery partition to put the computer back to 'out of the box' setup.

 

[Arbiter]

Ok, So I would first wipe the HD then use the system recovery disc on it to restore the programs that the PC came with?

 

[Lexluethar]

Exactly. You could also format the drive using Gparted, then use the recovery disk to restore it.

Boot Nuke is more for when you are either giving a PC to a recycling / waste disposal place or you are giving an unformatted PC to someone. The idea is you don't want people to pull any information off of it.

 

[Stevo808]

Ah yes, sorry for not pointing out which program to use. Boot and nuke does wonders.

 

[Arbiter]

No problem, so is Gparted or Boot Nuke better for cleaning off information for selling a PC to someone else?

 

[Lexluethar]

Technically both will work if you are going to reinstall windows after.

In general how I use the two:
Boot Nuke - used if i'm not reinstalling windows and i just want to ensure the data isn't recoverable. Run that for a few hours and no data will be readable.
Gparted - used if i'm going to reinstall windows (or in your case restore with recovery disk). First use gparted disk to boot up and format the drive, then install windows.

 

[Arbiter]

So a system recovery disc will load up the factory settings/programs that the PC came with? Someone else recommended Win7 Installer, do they mean a copy of Windows 7?