Virginia wants to know how to clean a computer before getting rid of it
How to clean a computer before getting rid of it. Know you have addressed this before but cannot locate it.
Our answer
Hi Virginia. If your getting ready to sell or give away a computer there’s two things you need to do:
1. Get rid of everything on your hard drive by wiping it with DBAN
2. Reinstall the operating system
You can get Darik’s Boot and Nuke (DBAN) from this link. Here is Darik’s description:
“Darik’s Boot and Nuke (“DBAN”) is a self-contained boot disk that securely wipes the hard disks of most computers. DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect, which makes it an appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction. DBAN is a means of ensuring due diligence in computer recycling, a way of preventing identity theft if you want to sell a computer, and a good way to totally clean a Microsoft Windows installation of viruses and spyware.”
A word of caution. DBAN will totally obliterate everything on your hard drive and overwrite it with gibberish so nothing can be recovered from it even using forensic software. So make sure you’ve saved whatever you want to save before you use it.
If you’re selling or giving away your old computer – it would be nice if you reinstalled Windows before you give it away or sell it. It won’t be of much use to anyone without an operating system on it — unless the person you’re selling it to or giving it to knows it won’t have an operating system.