Selling an old computer

[Papacita]

My mom recently sold an old computer, which we found out today still has a lot of her personal information on it. Now naturally, we'd like to get this information off the machine before giving it up, and we need to do so ASAP since the person who bought the machine is supposed to come pick it up tomorrow. I advised her not to go through by hand and start deleting stuff, but without any of the original software that came with it, we're unable to restore it to the factory settings.

 

Anybody have any advice on what I should do? Is there somewhere I can download something that should allow me to reset the machine (it's operating on Windows 95, BTW)? Should I just take my chances and delete the stuff, or is there some other solution I'm missing?

[Guest Princess Leena]

I think with Windows 95 (it's been a while)... if you have the CD that came with it, it should have a bootable disk. Or you can create one, I think.

 

Start the computer up with that... eventually it will get some black screen. Type in C:/format... or format C:.

 

That will erase the drive.

 

If not, I guess you could remove the hard drive.

[Papacita]

Well, we don't have the CD or the bootable disk, and I have no clue how to remove the hard drive.

[Guest Princess Leena]

If she got it from Gateway, Dell, Compaq, etc... there should be a recovery CD that you could format from.

 

If not, then I guess you'll have to delete things manually.

[Papacita]

Yeah. It's actually the computer given to her by her old job, and apparently they never gave her any disks.

 

I'll probably end up doing it manually. Thanks for the help.

[Mole]

Someone bought a computer with 95 on it? Geesh, for how much?

[AndrewTS]

For future reference: Usually the manufacturer can fulfill a disk to you to restore/erase.

 

However, to be more thorough you probably want to zero the harddrive, perhaps multiple times, and then reinstall your operating system. Once that's done, nothing aside from spending thousands to try to recover information that may or may not be on it is going to let anyone get personal info stored there.

 

For example, this is the process on a Mac: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107437

 

format c: on a pc doesn't completely wipe the HD like a zero, either, and often can still leave viruses if there were any.

 

More info:

http://www.unl.edu/is/computerdisposal.shtml

 

This may be too late, but should help anyone else looking for info on the topic at least.

 

I think you need 3rd party utilities to zero a PC harddrive, but I dunno. Leena may know.

[Guest Princess Leena]

With XP, you need the Windows CD or your HD's recovery disk to format or some other program out there.

 

With 98, you could create your own floppy boot disk if you didn't have those things. I'm guessing it's the same with 95. It's been forever since I've done these things. I hated 98.

[NoCalMike]

Most computers come with a Factory Restore disk, if not....

 

format: c ??

[Detox]

put a magnet to it, and it will erase the hard drive.