My brother-in-law has Windows 2000. He has decided he wants to sell his computer and everything with it. Is there an easy way I can clean out all his documents etc prior to selling, ie a complete clean of the computer basically (cookies, files, temp files etc and favourites). Obviously I would want to leave the basics on. He has lost his Windows installation disc as I had thought of a reformat. Any help would be appreciated.
Mary (Scotland)
bh99mh 0 Junior Poster in Training
pcschrottie 1 Posting Whiz in Training
Deleting a file by using for example "delete" in the context menu doesn't mean the file cannot be recovered with special tools. Some sort of low-level format of the harddisk and a reinstall of Windows would serve better. To "pseudo" low-level format the disk (overwrite it with 0's), check the website of your HD's manufacturer for special tools. (A real low-level format can only be done by the manufacturer himself, so I was told).
Michael
caperjack 875 I hate 20 Questions Team Colleague
This free Cleaner program will remove a lot of stuff .trust me ,I used it and today have to retype in all my passwords !hehe Aformat would be best though and let the buyer install there own OS.
Also ,delete your temporary files by deleting all files and folders that are in those folders (do not delete the temp folder itself) like for example
C:\WINDOWS\Temp\
C:\Temp\
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Temp\
Also delete your Temporary Internet Files, be sure to also select delete all offline content.
dlh6213 27 Posting Maven Team Colleague
If you have a Windows 98 boot disk, just boot to that and use fdisk to delete all the partitions, reboot, and then use format.
If you don't have a disk, you can try to get one from someone you know, or from here:
http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm
As for the low-level formatting, you can get more info here:
http://www.ariolic.com/activesmart/low-level-format.html
zeroth 171 Nearly a Posting Virtuoso
There is a way to reformat the drive from the command prompt in Win 2000. I have done it in the past. Perhaps one of the techs can give you some more info on this method. You would need to do it at least twice to remove everything beyond somebody smart getting at what you removed, though.
But if you do this, the person buying it would need to have an O&S CD of some ilk...
bh99mh 0 Junior Poster in Training
Many thanks to everyone for all their advice. I've copied it all and will let you know how I get on at the weekend.
Thanks again
Mary, Scotland
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