Securely sell my laptop

[GuitarHero]

I am selling my laptop, but do not want anyone finding credit card numbers and other similiar personal information on it. I just got it back from HP for repairs and they reimaged the disk and put windows on it, but is that enough? I want to clear any important info off of it but I also dont want to have to reinstall windows. What should I do?

[tempus]

I am selling my laptop, but do not want anyone finding credit card numbers and other similiar personal information on it. I just got it back from HP for repairs and they reimaged the disk and put windows on it, but is that enough? I want to clear any important info off of it but I also dont want to have to reinstall windows. What should I do?
yes its enough to reinstall windows. They likely formatted the disk prior to doin that so any information before is long gone. Unless you have since reentered some important information.

[rjfvillarosa]

yes its enough to reinstall windows. They likely formatted the disk prior to doin that so any information before is long gone. Unless you have since reentered some important information.
I wouldn't be so sure of that, if they formatted the disk then the information could still be there and can be recovered as long as it hasn't been written over.
You need a zero fill to be certain that all the information is gone.
Norton used to have a wipe facility that included what they called a "government wipe" this facility had the ability to zero fill the unused part of your hard drive, how good it was at doing this I don't know because I never used it but I am sure someone here may have some knowledge of it.

[Parangles]

glc just turned me on to Dban-
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=61951&release_id=344542

As approved by Dept of Defence etc. Make the floppy and shut down and boot with floppy inserted. Its not very user friendy - get back if you have problems getting it going.
Chris.

[Kareeser]

However, all of thsoe zero-fill and Dban utilities will clear the entire hard drive, including the operating system, will it not?

[flanzig1]

Kareeser, your right about the zero wipe. If the laptop uses a boot or recovery sector on the HD, that and the OS would be wiped clean.

[rjfvillarosa]

The Norton utility I remember, wiped the unused portion of the harddrive leaving the OS intact, BUT, I have never used it so I cannot confirm that.

[Parangles]

Yes, lets not get too paranoid. If you wipe it clean it will be major work to reinstall OS/drivers etc. Is someone really going to go to the trouble to extract your credit card numbers etc. ?
Its a lot less saleable/usable without OS etc. I 'd move on.

[glc]

http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/

This can do a freespace wipe.