Selling old PC - advice needed

[Ragemeteora81]

Hi all,

Hope to get some advice on the following:

I am selling off my current rig (entire pc) and I would like to reformat everything and make sure all my personal files are erased before passing it on to the buyer. The PC was initially on Windows 7 when I first custom built it but I have upgraded it to Windows 8 in October 2013; subsequently there was a free upgrade to Windows 8.1 - the current OS is therefore Windows 8.1 .

When I purchased Windows 8, I believe I was prompted to create a Boot DVD and I have managed to locate this Windows 8 Boot DVD. My question now is how should I go about reformatting the entire computer (the OS is installed on the SSD while my HDD is a storage drive)? I did some research and found 2 methods:

http://www.howtogeek.com/132428/eve...t-refreshing-and-resetting-your-windows-8-pc/

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows-8/ss/windows-8-clean-install-part-1.htm#step2

Appreciate any advice as to which is the best way to go about doing this, thanks!

 

[localITguy]

Hi all,

Hope to get some advice on the following:

I am selling off my current rig (entire pc) and I would like to reformat everything and make sure all my personal files are erased before passing it on to the buyer. The PC was initially on Windows 7 when I first custom built it but I have upgraded it to Windows 8 in October 2013; subsequently there was a free upgrade to Windows 8.1 - the current OS is therefore Windows 8.1 .

When I purchased Windows 8, I believe I was prompted to create a Boot DVD and I have managed to locate this Windows 8 Boot DVD. My question now is how should I go about reformatting the entire computer (the OS is installed on the SSD while my HDD is a storage drive)? I did some research and found 2 methods:

http://www.howtogeek.com/132428/eve...t-refreshing-and-resetting-your-windows-8-pc/

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows-8/ss/windows-8-clean-install-part-1.htm#step2

Appreciate any advice as to which is the best way to go about doing this, thanks!

for SSD, just pop in the DVD and re-install windows,

for the HDD you can go to windows and format it at My computer > right click and format


if you are worried the buyer might recover your data, you can use DBan to nuke to the HDD. ( secure wipe) that will overwrite your HDD with one and Zeros

please do not use dban on your SSD, it will kill it

again there is no way to to be sure that data cannot be recovered after Dban, but its unlikely.

best way to safe guard is to remove your HDD and SSD and keep it for yourself

 

[MoneyFace =p]

Do a secure erase on SSD using Parted Magic