Wipe Old Computer

xxDOYLExx

xxDOYLExx

CAGiversary!
Hey Guys,

I got a new job. I need to wipe my old company laptop of everything except the OS. Do any of you know of a good program to do this? Its a vista 64 bit machine.

Thanks
 
If there is a "Recovery" partition or drive, you could do a restore from that otherwise; add-remove programs, then un-install the programs you don't need.
 
Anything that does a good job is most likely going to erase everything on the machine. Which shouldn't be a problem, just have IT reinstall the Os.
 
If you have a copy of the OS install disks, then I'd suggest wiping the drive clean and then putting a fresh OS install back on the system.

If you don't have a copy of the OS install disks, then you should see if there's a recovery partition on the laptop as seen suggested, and put it back to factory specs, which will wipe out the drive.

Realistically, it depends on what you want to wipe off the system. If you've had it a while, then doing a fresh OS reinstall would be the cleanest way to do it.
 
thanks for the input. I do have a recovery partition. I also lost the OS disc. In y'alls opinion would this be sufficient (using the recovery partition?) I have some personal stuff on the system I don't need found by a recovery program.
 
[quote name='xxDOYLExx']thanks for the input. I do have a recovery partition. I also lost the OS disc. In y'alls opinion would this be sufficient (using the recovery partition?) I have some personal stuff on the system I don't need found by a recovery program.[/QUOTE]If it's a work machine, they should be able to set it back up again/reimage the machine with whatever image they have for that computer.

If you don't have the OS disc, you may be able to contact the manufacturer of the PC and have them send you the OS disc(s) for that laptop.
 
whats your take of on a re-format using the recovery partition, then using a "wipe free space utility back on the main drive after recovery?
 
If you've got an install key for the OS, I'd use DBAN (murph17's suggestion above) and kill the entire thing and install the OS fresh.

If you've got a recovery partition, you should be able to use DBAN to kill the OS partition and then use the recovery partition to restore the OS.

If you don't want to go to those extremes, you could user CCleaner to run a wipe on free space on a drive, which theoretically should scramble the free space securely. Eraser might also do it.
 
If you need your Windows product key or any other product key google a program called "produkey" and it will tell you your keys before you uninstall\reformat.
 
[quote name='xxDOYLExx']whats your take of on a re-format using the recovery partition, then using a "wipe free space utility back on the main drive after recovery?[/QUOTE]That should be about as good as you're going to manage without wiping the entire drive.

This is a good CD to pick up and make a disc for:
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

Lots of tools that are useful, and all of them free.

[quote name='murph17']Darik's Boot and Nuke. Free. Will wipe EVERYTHING.
http://www.dban.org/[/QUOTE]Good stuff. I use it often for wiping drives.
 
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