Installing windows 7 after wiping hard drive?

Hey,

So basically I'm selling my laptop, and obviously I want to get rid of all my data/make sure it cannot be recovered again. Now I'm a complete newbie but I'm not really sure as to what's the best method to go about doing this.

I was thinking of running DBan to overwrite the hard drive and then reinstall windows 7. But I don't have a windows 7 installation disk. I only have some recovery CD's that PCWorld made for me when I first got my laptop which I think is just a system image so I don't know if I'd be able to use it to reinstall windows 7?

My other option I was thinking of was to just replace the hard drive altogether but again that leads to the question that will my recovery/system images work on the new hard drive?


Thanks :)

The simplest way would be to just restore to factory settings using the disks provided when you purchased the laptop, check when doing this that it follows usual practice and wipes the disk of all data before resetting the syastem to exactly as it was when shipped from the factory.

this should just be a case of either booting from the recovery disks and following the prompts, or running a program supplied by the manufacturer or PC World, details should be in the documentation supplied with the laptop in some cases you may be given more than one option, some may offer to retain various things you have added, data and applications etc. there should be an option to reset to factory condition, this is the one to choose.

The other advantage of this is that it should leave the system in a licensed state, and when the new user starts up for the first time it will go through the first start routine where they can create a user-name, password etc.

Before you start this process you should of course make sure you have copies of all the data and any disks and software keys for software you may have added whilst you were using the laptop

Barman has given excellent advice, but if you cannot use the restore partition, you can make an ISO of Seven, if you have the key number
Windows 7 Direct Download Links, Official Disk Images from Digital River
Sometimes the restore partition is corrupt and you may not have the Discs. As Barman has mentioned the best and easiest way, however, is to follow his suggestions

You are making a lot of sense

yes this is a small chance that someone could recover you data after a complete restore to factory settings, but the people who could do it are those in Law enforcement with very specialised and very very expensive facilities and specialists with the knowledge to do this. If you are really concerned with your data you can probably run the DBan rout on just your data and not your Operating system.

Most restore systems for the likes of Samsung work by wiping all data and partitions and re-writing the factory information back onto the hard disk bit by bit from a stored image, so the majority of space will be written over and the remainder cleared.

Unless you are selling your laptop to the CIA or NSA, and you have data that they are willing to spend a lot of time and money to recover you should be safe

If you replace the hard drive, you will not have a recovery partition/image unless you saved it externally or have the discs.

I would not even consider using a system image unless it is an out of box/factory image.

Data can always be retrieved from a hard drive. If you are worried, replace it.

newbiegirl said:

Barman58 said:

You are making a lot of sense

yes this is a small chance that someone could recover you data after a complete restore to factory settings, but the people who could do it are those in Law enforcement with very specialised and very very expensive facilities and specialists with the knowledge to do this. If you are really concerned with your data you can probably run the DBan rout on just your data and not your Operating system.

Most restore systems for the likes of Samsung work by wiping all data and partitions and re-writing the factory information back onto the hard disk bit by bit from a stored image, so the majority of space will be written over and the remainder cleared.

Unless you are selling your laptop to the CIA or NSA, and you have data that they are willing to spend a lot of time and money to recover you should be safe

How do I run the DBan just on my data and not the OS? That would be a lot better if I could just do the DBan on the data, reset it to factory settings and keep the OS that way before selling it on.

Thanks again :)

Dban will wipe the system clean. Unless you are an undercover agent, I do not think it is necessary. Just install the new OS.

It looks Like Dban is a limited free software that only works for complete disks, there is a commercial version that has this facility, but I think there may be alternate free software that can perform a selective wipe of a similar nature - i will see if I can source something for you - it may be tomorrow before i get back so if anyone else knows of something please jump in and help :)

As for the new disk option, this may be possible, although I have come across restore systems that will only work with an identical size / type of disk to the original, others work universally so would not have any issue

Edit

I just scanned the documentation for Dban and they mention that Certain agencies, would still be able to recover data, even after a full wipe with Dban, so i suppose that the re-install to factory shipped state would be as good as the wipe with Dban and then a re-install to factory as far as the ultimate security is concerned - for your peace of mind I will still look for an alternative to Dban for you