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If you have a hard disk drive (HDD), it will be thoroughly erased when you refresh Windows.
#How to wipe a computer for sale Pc#
Then, the PC can boot from the USB recovery drive. This reverts your computer to exactly as it was when it left the factory, as if you had pressed the power button for the very first time. And go read a book or something, as it’ll be a while. Select the appropriate secure erase for your needs, then click the Erase button. Then, click the F10 and Enter keys to save changes and exit the Firmware. The best way to prepare your computer for re-sale, and the only fair way, in my view, is to do what's known as a factory restore. The more passes you use, the safer you are, but you shouldn’t need more than a zero erase unless you’re trying to hide important government or industry secrets that may be worth a lot of money to access. In the Firmware, set the USB drive as the first boot device. With a little bit of tech savvy and effort, you can turn that old laptop or desktop into some extra cash. Power on this PC, and then press the BIOS key (F2, Del, etc.) when the logo screen appears, so that you can enter Firmware. Get your old PC ready to sell for as much cash as possible. But if you plan to sell or give the computer away, you'll want to take extra precaution to make sure the data stored on your PC is inaccessible to the computer's next owner. Insert the USB drive to the PC to be wiped. If you are keeping the computer, you can proceed directly to resetting the hard drive back to a fresh version of Windows. How you wipe your PC depends on what you plan to do with it afterward. Hard drive space and return your PC to full, factory-fresh performance.
#How to wipe a computer for sale windows#
Wiping it and starting fresh can help you reclaim all your To use the 'Reset This PC' feature to securely erase everything on the computer and reinstall Windows 10, use these steps: Open Settings. You can do this if you're preparing to sell or give away your computer, or you might do this to troubleshoot a problematic PC. Although older versions of Windows didn't make it easy to wipe your computer clean of personal information, that's pretty simple to do with Windows 10.