Wiping my hard drive.

[Teabags]

I want to donate my old Dell XP desktop but would like to clear the hard drive first. Is there a way to do this without connecting it to the internet as I don't want six months of updates?. I have tried a free disk with CCleaner on it but won't work without being connected to the web. Prefer not to remove the hard drive and destroy it as the computer is quite usable. Sorry about the naivety:o and thanks in advance.:)

[Bluesplayer.]

There are a few ways of doing this - two are.

You could delete all personal files and data and then reinstall Xp, if you have the install Cd.

Although a reinstall will do the job just as well without deleting data etc.

 

Or download on another Pc..

http://www.dban.org/

 

Others here may add another way that they use.

[KenB]

Hi

 

Just to add to what Bluesplayer has written:

 

If you have the original installation disk ( unlikely with a Dell ) or the recovery disks that came with it - it is a relatively simple job to revert the system to what it was when you bought it.

 

If you don't have any disks then you need to copy all of your files / folders onto a DVD or external hard drive ( you need to do this anyway :) ) then delete them from the drive before you pass the machine on.

 

CCleaner will only remove temporary and unnecessary files.

 

Dban ( as suggested by Bluesplayer ) will wipe EVERYTHING off the drive leaving it absolutely clean.

 

It is a long job to check everywhere on the system to make sure that nothing is left behind that you would not want to pass on.

The easiest option is to restore the OS to factory settings if this is possible.

[Armageddon]

Hi

Just to add further I personally use @ctive killbits to wipe a hard drive , it will clean the drive but leave the operating system intact , but be careful if you make a mistake and it takes a while too, and depending on the age of the Dell system do you have a recovery partition ? you could reset back to factory settings