How to wipe a laptop

[William-Mathew]

Hey guys

I have a 6 year old Toshiba laptop what I am selling to someone. I have taken all the files that I want off of it and now i want to do a clean install. How would I wipe the HHD that is in it. I have the product key that came with it for windows 7 HP but it came with no disk, I presume that a standard windows 7 HP desktop disk would be fine to use?

Thanks for any help

Will

 

[anthony566]

Hey guys

I have a 6 year old Toshiba laptop what I am selling to someone. I have taken all the files that I want off of it and now i want to do a clean install. How would I wipe the HHD that is in it. I have the product key that came with it for windows 7 HP but it came with no disk, I presume that a standard windows 7 HP desktop disk would be fine to use?

Thanks for any help

Will

Does it not have a recovery and restore application installed on it ? if it does just do the Factory Restore.

 

[prj1865]

I would use something like killdisk to write all drive sectors to 1 or 0 to make sure nothing of yours is left on it, and then reinstall the OS.

 

[postmanfw]

Dban

http://www.dban.org

7 passes is more then enough

 

[ANDARIAL]

Try this

• 1) Hold down the power button for ten seconds to switch off your machine
  • Please note: Holding down the power button on the machine forces it to switch off. Any unsaved data will be lost.
• 2) Press and hold the zero key and at the same time, tap the power button once to switch on your notebook
• 3) When the machine starts beeping, release the zero key
• 4) When prompted by the warning screen, select Yes to continue with the system recovery
• 5) Select Recovery of Factory Default Software and click Next
• 6) Select Recover to out-of-box state and Click Next again
• 7) Click Next to Start the recovery

 

[Akagi]

Remove HDD, apply a damp cloth.

 

[Ben Cole]

Use your Windows disc but you might have to activate by phone.

Regarding the "cleaning" of the disc. Unless you're a MI5 operative or a tin foil hat wearer any software that writes over the whole disc will be fine.

Personally I'm always happy just formatting and selling on.