Selling Laptop

Once everything is deleted, make sure you empty the recycle bin.

 

Search for a factory restore setting. Some computers have them built in, that should wipe everything if they have that

 

Yes it’s true that deleting a file or emptying the recycle bin doesn’t really delete the file. It’s still on your computer. Think about this: Why does it take longer to copy a 1GB file on to your computer, but it takes only less than a second to delete it? The answer is very simple: When you hit delete, it doesn’t delete the file. It only remove it from the interface, where you can’t look it up, but it’s still in the harddrive.

You will need a special software to actually delete it, and it does this by overwriting the file with random numbers. If it takes you 3 minutes to copy the 1GB file, then it’ll take 3 minutes to clear it. However, special softwares can still RECOVER it! So you will need to increase the repetition (number of times to overwrite that same file). So if you want to do it 4 times, then it’ll take 12 minutes. Doesn’t sound much for a 1GB file... but if your Harddrive is 500GB, and you want to make sure that it’s wiped clean, then it’ll take much longer. Don’t worry though, the software will take care of all that for you.

Usually if you’re on macOS, you should have encrypted your whole drive from the start, so that everything that gets written to it is automatically encrypted by default.

If you’re on PC, I think a better option is just take out the harddrive and put in a brand new one and sell the PC with that.

If all you viewed were just regular P, and nothing questionable then nothing to worry, just use a special software to do a quick erase. But if you got stuff on there that might be bad for you down the road, I would take out the harddrive for peace of mind.

EDIT: Oh, its a Laptop you’re selling. In that case, I suggest you look for a special software designed for erasing data.

Just a piece of advice: People might say they’ll clear up everything for you once you sell it to them, but you don’t know that for sure. If you got stuff on there that might cause misunderstanding and ruin your reputation down the road, then you need to be wiser than just taking them at their words.

 

u removed the files, but bytes of those files stay on the hdd. With an recovery tool such as recuva u can revover removed data. It better to format the hdd with an tool that has an option to overwrite the whole hdd with 0 bytes, this will truly delete the data and making it unrecoverable

 

If you have a SSD, then the data won't stay for long, unless you're using an old OS, like Windows XP. If you have a HDD, in THEORY, data could stay written until you copy things over it, but in practice, specially if you have your system installed in the HDD, almost all data is unrecoverable by easy means.

I believe that, if you don't know your way with computers (which is fine, really), then you never should sell a personal HDD (or anything who stores data, really), but if you're willing to learn about how to erase it, I can assure you that it isn't hard anyway.

You could, for example, boot in a linux distribution using a live ISO and run some commands to erase your HDD, fill all data with 0, or random stuff, etc... I won't guide you here, but all you need is a usb stick and some patience while searching with Google or Youtube.

 

it is but i would search for an tool thath overwrites the drive with random data just to be 100% sure. Idk a ool for windows im on linux