How would i be best formatting my ssd drive ready to sell laptop?

JamesUK · 27 Jan 2021 at 12:18

Hi, I am selling my old Lenovo Ideapad 510 laptop as i am getting a new Dell G5 15 laptop.

My old laptop didn't come with an SSD drive but i added one in it and used the software to copy my old drive onto it.

As i will be selling my old laptop I want to do a full safe format, how am i best doing that?

The drive contains setup files i think and also I do have an image DVD of windows 10 that i downloaded from the Microsoft site, but i was more worried about how I’m best clearing everything off it ready to sell to someone?

Thanks

James

LeoK · 27 Jan 2021 at 20:40

Hi,

If I had to sell a laptop with a drive and wanted to make sure to not recover data and minimise SSD ware I’d:

update the firmware on the SSD
Check if manufacturers offer a secure wipe utility
If not, Get something like https://dban.org/
Follow the steps to do a basic wipe
If needed, install new OS, drivers etc.

You also want to check your warranty. It will shorten life expectancy of the drive. Rarely drives can fail after a DBAN. Having done this many many times, one or two manufacturers/ drives seem to handle a DBAN better then others.

If I wanted to be 100% certain. I’d physically destroy the drive and buy a new one.

JamesUK · 9 Feb 2021 at 16:07

Hi thanks for your reply.

I am wondering about buying a new one, my old drive contained the partition to install windows though, i do have a dvd image of windows which i could install from but will my laptop activate windows once installed?

Psycho Sonny · 9 Feb 2021 at 23:06

JamesUK said:
Hi, I am selling my old Lenovo Ideapad 510 laptop as i am getting a new Dell G5 15 laptop.

My old laptop didn't come with an SSD drive but i added one in it and used the software to copy my old drive onto it.

As i will be selling my old laptop I want to do a full safe format, how am i best doing that?

The drive contains setup files i think and also I do have an image DVD of windows 10 that i downloaded from the Microsoft site, but i was more worried about how I’m best clearing everything off it ready to sell to someone?

Thanks

James

Windows has a reset option.

Giving them a blank drive without windows would be poor form.

Just use Windows reset