struggling with the old stuff still on this laptop

Hello :),

Very stupid question perhaps, if you clean the disk, will that take everything away the former users put on the PC ?

Thanks for any answers in advance,
Cheers,
Thelma

thelma said:

Hello :),

Very stupid question perhaps, if you clean the disk, will that take everything away the former users put on the PC ?

Thanks for any answers in advance,
Cheers,
Thelma

That's not a stupid question. If you completely wipe the disk, then yes, it will take everything away. The disk will be essentially a blank disk with no data, OS, etc. left on it. If you don't want to lose any data from the disk, then you would need to copy the data over to another disk before wiping it. If you want a bootable copy of the disk, then you would need to clone it to another disk before wiping (Macrium Reflect Free is an excellent program for cloning).

Hi,
I'd ask them if you can remove the hdd and not void the warranty

Mike, you're taking the "Mike Mikey" out off me .

By now I know that a HDD is a hard drive disk, and What Warranty after 12 years and as the 3th owner ?????.

Lady Jeannie ( almost a Roling Stones song ), I use CCleaner a lot. So I could use it to wipe clean and reinstall ?
I am now struggling with the old stuff still on this laptop. Managed to get a lot off by simply deleting.
I downloaded my things ( Toshiba external USB Harddrive ) from the now finished Dell to this HP and now it's all a bit off a mess.
I cannot get rid of the old owner," I think" when I delete her completely I cannot do anything with the PC afterwards. That's all locked up stuff.
I will need to read up much more about this " wipe clean " before making drastic mistakes.

If you have a WinPE boot USB then you could run CCleaner Portable disk wipe utility to wipe the entire disk. I have never tried it as disk wiping is a scary thing to play around with. :)

I don't have a guinea pig machine.

Hello :) and

Thanks for the suggestions. I have looked into Macrium before and find it quiet difficult to understand. Will read that thread through again. I also have no ginny pig to try it on.

Thelma, if your intention is to wipe and re-install there is no need to treat the wipe and install as two operations. Obviously you need to backup your personal stuff before you start.

If you have access to and decide to use the manufacturer's restore this will by default wipe the disk as part of the restore

If you decide to perform a clean install from "proper" media then part way through the install you have a screen where you have to decide and tell the installer the location you wish to install to - this page contains a drive options (advanced) button which allows you to wipe the disk and also set up partitions etc. If you go this way you will need to make sure that drivers are available and you preferably have them on a USB ready and waiting, also you need to consider if you wish to retain any recovery partition if so just remove all other partitions. You would also need access to the original COA for a key to activate

The issue you have with the original user should be an easy fix, log-in with the original owner ID and create a new user, make sure this new user is an administrator account, log in in future as this new user - set things up as your want and when happy delete the original owner account, (you can also select to place all the Original owner stuff in a folder on the desktop which may be archived just in case

Thanks for starting a new thread Nigel,

Thelma that reply was directed at the other person where they were sending the machine back as defective :)

Your issue might be best doing the Macrium reflect system image before attempting to do anything else yet.

First after the system image is created I would post a disk management screen shot so we can see what is on the disk it may have a system recovery partition you can use
Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image

If it doesn't we can look into the clean install that Nigel suggests

Hello there and thanks Barman for starting this new thread. I should not have hijacked the other. It started with a little question but then got a little confusing.

Now I understand Mike, sorry .

Will do the "Macrium reflect" as you all suggest it and post a disk management screen shot. Need to expand my knowledge here

OK, I have downloaded the free Version of Macrium Reflect 64 bit.

Am reading now the know-how.

Have 2 questions ;

Do I do cloning in my situation or do I do Imagining ?

Can I ( which ever I do of the 2 ) put it on a clean USB stick which has 64 GB ?

Thank you very much for your answer in advance,

Cheers,
Thelma