erase memory

[dmb1]

I am about to sell my PC and want to wipe the hard drive in order so that the new owner has all the available space on it. Would re-installing windows do this or not. My main worry is things like internet pages which despite clearing the history folder still remain and must be taking up space somewhere.

I am a novice at this and don't want to ruin the PC just before I'm going to sell it.

Any help would be great.

Cheers

Dean

 

[nlm9802]

I would recommend a format and reinstall an operating system and drivers

If you do not have drivers you should either try to locate them either on media or on the internet.

Another option would be to go to add/remove programs and take out everything but the basics, then go through your program files and look for anything thats left that you want to uninstall. There should be an uninstall icon if it was not on the add/remove programs list.

To take out webpages simply delete the contents of the temporary internet folders, and clear the cache. If you are using internet explorer, just right click on the icon, go to properties, and click delete files, ensuring the "delete all offline content" box is checked, and click ok. This will clear Internet Explorer. You can also clear the history from that screen.


Now, if you simply want a clean hard drive, I would recommend just wiping it clean with a format utility like fdisk.

To do this:

*NOTE* if you have any extras in your computer such as modems, video cards, cdrw, Network cards, or anything else not on the motherboard itself, you should download the drivers and save them somewhere before you format, if you have the disks on hand dont worry about it.

1) obtain a floppy disk, ensure it is empty (format it if you have to)
2) go to

http://www.23cc.com/free-fdisk/

3) download free fdisk 0.99b
4) unzip the file to your floppy drive, also add format.exe from your c drive (start-find, files and folders, look for format, then copy it to your floppy disk.
5) insert the floppy and reboot your computer (shutdown and restart)
6) the computer should reboot to the floppy disk, where it will give you the command prompt A:7) now the fun part, you get to destroy something!
8) type fdisk.exe <enter>
9) choose option 3. delete partition or logical DOS drive.
10) select the drive(s) you want deleted
11) if you had your drive partitioned make sure to delete all partitions now.
12) This will leave you with a lump of free space. Now select the first option and create a new primary partition.
go ahead and apply all of the free space to that drive unless you really want to make partitions.
13) now select the 2nd option to set the partition as active (so it will boot up to it)
14) now if you are installing windows, go ahead, it will format the partition you install windows to anyways. but if you arent installing windows, you should get back to the command prompt (A:\) and type format c:
15) now your hard drive is clean. just install windows or leave it as is.

-Nick

 

[dmb1]

Thanks for the help I have managed to delete most of the web pages but there are still about fifteen or so sites it remembers when the automcomplete function is on - despite the temporary internet files and the history file being empty. Is there any way to delete these or would a wipe of the system using the free fdisk clear these from the memory?

Thanks

dmb1

 

[pcelf]

To do that all you have to do is go to start>settings>taskbar&start menu...then at the top hit the start menu programs tab, at the bottom click the clear button on documents menu and that should do it for you...

 

[dmb1]

Thanks but this still doesn't totally clear the stored web pages. When I went to start>settings>taskbar&start menu... I only had taskbar instead of taskbar&start menu. Does this mean I have to set up my desktop to view as a web page or is there anothere way to delete these pages?

Cheers

dmb1

 

[Alt255]

If you have already wiped the history folder you might try uninstalling Internet Explorer and the reinstalling it.

Alt255@Vorpalcom.Intranets.com
​

 

[dmb1]

Thanks again but this still doesn't seem to work - these pages seem to be invincible!!

Does anybody know of another way to get rid of them as they are really starting to bug me!

Thanks

dmb1