Deleting Hard Drive [Archive]

MathsPar

5 Aug 2007, 6:37pm

Going to be selling my Laptop on ebay and want to wipe all the memory. Don't fancy formatting it though as I can't find the CD that came with it. Is there a quick way to delete all the memory quickly but keeping software like Vista and Microsoft Office on it.

I want it to be totally fresh for the new owner but not sure if there is a way I can do that without formatting it.

MathsPar

5 Aug 2007, 11:51pm

Is there some way of resetting to default before I even touched it?

Leonardo

6 Aug 2007, 1:32am

If you aren't going to format the hard drive, then no, to my knowledge there's no way to 100% wipe out all data but save the operating system. You can though, just hunt for and manually delete anything that's not operating system. The casual user would not find that data, but forensics could without a problem.

There may be a freeware software program out there that can format/wipe selected portions of a hard drive. Of that though, I have no knowledge.

Leonardo

6 Aug 2007, 1:34am

Is there some way of resetting to default before I even touched it?Many, if not most laptops these days have a special partition on the hard drive that has restore files and functions. If your drive has this partition, you should be able to restore the laptop to retail configuration. What manufacturer, model, and year of manufacture is your laptop?

Thrax

6 Aug 2007, 3:31am

Only HPs and Compaqs have this.

Leonardo

6 Aug 2007, 4:57am

Thrax, I'm sure my old Gateway (good riddance) had a locked partition with restore files, and I think my son's computer has this as well. It does not have a restore CD. (yeah, I know - OEM cut-all-corners-that-can-be-cut)

Thrax

6 Aug 2007, 5:47am

If the laptop was made within the last year, I assure you that only Compaq and HPs have the restore partition. Gateways and eMachines have partitions that are supplemental to the restore DVDs (Which you must now create manually).

It's dumb.

MathsPar

6 Aug 2007, 3:38pm

This is my model,

http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Lenovo_3000_C200_Laptop_TZ0AZUK/version.asp

Apart from it's DDR instead of DDR2.

Will be back on later tonight and fiddling about with stuff on the laptop to see if there is anything like that.