How to Wipe Your Hard Drive Clean Before Selling Your Old Computer

Engaging in a bit of hard drive cleansing is very important when you decide to sell an older computer. Taking the time to wipe your computer of all data saved on the hard drive means that no one can get to files and other data that could be considered personal or proprietary. By making sure the data removal is complete, you provide the new owner with the opportunity to load whatever programs and files desired onto the system, while avoiding the need to clear off your old information in order to make full use of the available memory.

Create backups of all your data. Begin the process with any word processing files, email files, images or presentations you may have saved on the hard drive, then move on to any databases that reside locally on your drive. From there, also backup any software programs you may want to load onto a new machine, taking care to save registration and serial numbers for the new installation. You can use CDRs, flash drives, or online data storage sites for this process.

Download and save the drivers you will need to reinstall once the data is wiped from the hard drive. The drivers can often be downloaded directly from a manufacturer web site. Save the driver files on separate CDRs or flash drives until you need them.

Secure software to wipe the hard drive completely. Processes like formatting or deleting individual files manually do not make data completely unrecoverable. Find a data dumping software package that completely writes over the hard disk, making it virtually impossible to recover any of the old data once housed on the disk.

Initiate the data dump. Following the instructions that come with the disk wiping software, place the disk into the appropriate drive and begin the procedure. Most software packages of this type will require that you respond affirmatively at several points during the process and will prompt you to reboot the computer once the wiping is complete.

Check the completeness of the data wiping. Reboot the computer and search around for files, programs, emails, and security codes that should no longer be present. If necessary, install the drivers downloaded and saved on a CDR or jump drive previously. When successful, this process has the computer in a pristine condition, making it easy to install a new operating system and any programs you wish to include on the drive with no worries of personal information also being included.

Tips

While you can buy disk wiping software for reasonable costs, there are also open source and free source applications that will work just as well. Make sure that you choose an open source solution that is compatible with the make and model of computer you have, and that can effectively work with the operating system currently installed to complete the wiping effectively.

Before proceeding with the disk wiping, try all your saved files and programs on your new system to make sure they are working properly. Only once you know that everything you need is no loaded on your new system and is fully functional should you proceed with wiping the hard drive of your older computer.