How to clean your computer before selling 🥝 how to quickly erase information from your hard drive

Are you going to sell a laptop and replace it with a model more suitable for your current requirements? For such a thing, you need to properly prepare the device. Nobody would want his personal information to be seen by someone and fall into the hands of attackers, so let's talk about cleaning the gadget. How to clean your computer before selling? How to erase all information except windows? We will analyze the detailed algorithm of such work in this article.

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We clean the laptop

Before you get rid of any device that stores your personal information, you need to take care to completely destroy it. Only with full confidence in the absence of personal information on the gadget, a device can be sold or thrown away.

Important! This is very important, since on almost all drives data that is deleted in the usual way can be easily restored. Not always the usual deletion can completely get rid of the information.

Disks and their functionality

Laptops and computers with internal drives will only need to be erased if they are equipped with mechanical or hybrid hard drives.

Data from solid-state media is permanently destroyed; the reason for this is the TRIM team. Thanks to her, SSDs work so fast. Once again, we will focus on hybrid and mechanical drives.

Operating Systems and Their Features

At the expense of different operating systems, there are some nuances:

• In Windows 8 and 8.1 there is a function “Delete all data and reinstall Windows”. The option “Completely clean the disk” will ensure complete destruction of information without the possibility of its subsequent recovery.
• For Windows 7, you can use the DBAN utility. It will allow you to overwrite absolutely all files on a disk with a random data set. This method requires subsequent installation of the operating system.

Important! Repeated repetition of such procedures is not required.

• Macs equipped with mechanical disks must be loaded in recovery mode. For complete removal, you need to use the “Disk Utility”, and then reinstall the operating system.

If you are worried about how to clean your laptop before selling without resorting to reinstalling the operating system - read on.

Delete protected files and folders

Most likely, many computer users have at least once in their life encountered problems when deleting any files or folders. You clicked the Delete button or selected the “Delete” command in the context menu, but the process of deleting files is not going to be carried out, and an error message appears.

Such files usually have a “lock” next to the shortcut. These files can be created by viruses or have a different origin, but you need to get rid of them - this is unconditional.

What to do in case of a situation?

Scan your device for antivirus threats and clean, if any. Let's get down to the protected files and folders themselves. Let's turn to the utility - Unlocker. This program is completely free and is available on the Internet, and it copes with its task:

1. Install the program itself.
2. Click on the “unwanted” file or RMB folder (with the right mouse button) and select the “Unlocker” line.
3. In the context menu that appears, select the “Delete” item.
4. Click “OK” and wait for the end of the process.

Removing passwords in different browsers

The autosave function in browsers is very convenient, but not if you transfer your device to another person. It will be about removing passwords in different browsers.

Uninstall in Google Chrome:

1. Open “Settings”, go to “Advanced Settings”, located at the very end of the page.
2. We go to the section “Passwords and forms”, in the item “Suggest to save passwords for sites” click on “Configure”.
3. In the window that appears, delete the passwords.

Uninstall in Mozilla Firefox:

1. Click on the “Open Menu” button. Next, go to “Settings”.
2. In the window that opens, we find the tab “Protection”.
3. Go to the “Passwords” section, find “Saved passwords” there, and delete the passwords here.
4. All saved passwords can be deleted with the click of a button: “Delete All”.

Removal in Yandex.Browser

To delete data from this browser there is an instruction for switching between tabs:

1. “Yandex browser settings”.
2. “Settings”.
3. “Show advanced settings”.
4. “Passwords and auto-complete.”
5. “Password Management”. Here, autofill data and all other entered information are deleted.

Uninstall in Opera

In order:

1. “Configuring and managing Opera.”
2. “Setup”.
3. "Security".
4. “Passwords”.
5. “Manage saved passwords.”
6. “Saved passwords.” Password removal is done here.

Uninstall in Internet Explorer

To delete data, you need to perform the following transition steps:

1. "Service".
2. “Browser Properties”.
3. "Content".
4. “AutoFill” - “Options”.
5. “Autofill options” - “Delete the autocomplete log ...”.
6. In the “Delete browsing history” window, check the box “Passwords” and poke the “Delete” button.

Important! You can use third-party applications to delete the saved passwords, to clear the computer before selling, the same CCleaner can do this task perfectly.

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Paranoia?

Even after all the actions done, you still have the feeling that you could not completely clean the computer before the sale? If you are afraid that your secret data will be taken from the most terrible depths, we suggest you to do the following:

1. Create a new administrative account.
2. View all other accounts on the device.
3. Delete all unnecessary (from the point of view of sale) programs and files / directories.
4. Clear “temp’s” (This is full of detailed articles).
5. In free space, create a separate partition and encrypt it with TrueCrypt. At the output we have two sections: encrypted and a section with a system and a minimum amount of data.
6. Go through the first section with ccleaner.
7. Delete the encrypted partition and merge the free space with the first.

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Stock footage

https://youtu.be/GLmUOpkLpkE

All the information above should save you from the fear of losing personal data or their access to outsiders when selling your device. You can no longer worry about the safety of your data after they are deleted. A potential buyer will not be able to fish out something personal, making any effort to do so. We repeat that the surest way is to completely clean the device, which implies the subsequent reinstallation of the Windows OS. Follow all the tips and you won’t miss. Profitable sales for you!