How to wipe all personal data without formatting?

[radio91]

IM going to sell my old pc to a guy from work but i cant be botherd to format and re-install xp, So how do i wipe all personal data that could still be in the pc like passwords, bank details ect?

 

[Le Samourai]

Here's a search for 'privacy' + 'cleaner' from www.snapfiles.com in their freeware section.

Link here.

Index.dat is quite important to wipe, so look out for utilities mentioning that as well as the usual suspects.

 

[Energize]

The only real way to make sure all data is gone is to re-write all the sectors of the hard disk, you can buy programs that do this, or you can do a low level format of the hdd. A normal reformat will not get rid of these details.

 

[Le Samourai]

Killdisk is pretty thorough but you'll be in format and re-install territory.

A basic install of windows doesn't really take that long but it all depends on how much your colleague wishes it to be set up.