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]

Originally Posted by 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?

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]

Originally Posted by tempus 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/showf...ease_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.