Selling a PC Basics

[Jarhead0331]

So I just sold one of my rigs to someone on the Facebook marketplace. I was pleased to see that she is local and that we have a mutual friend, so it gives me some assurance that I'm not going to be ambushed and gang-raped. Still, I've never sold one of my rigs before so I'm a little iffy on all steps needed to adequately scrub the drives and prevent any recovery of my old data. Fortunately, I never used this PC to store documents and I never really transacted any business from this PC either. As a result, there isn't too much that I am overly concerned about.

In any event, I did a full factory reset. This included wiping out all files, data and apps from all hard drives and reinstalling windows. The process took about 8-hours so I know it gave a good cleaning. When I boot the computer it goes to the Cortana set-up screen that you get when you turn on a new system for the first time so I know its a clean version of windows.

Is there anything else I should do before handing the computer over in the exchange?

Thanks.

[Gusington]

Bring your rape whistle anyway.

[Con]

Bleach the outside to remove DNA stains on it - Sounds like this was a stealth machine for you to peruse the seedier side of the internet.  I bet if you used a blacklight it would look like a Jackson Pollock painting

[GDS_Starfury]

now I have this image of JH being gang raped by a midget biker gang who likes playing CoD.

[Gusington]

Aka ‘Tuesday evening.’

[Father Ted]

In any event, I did a full factory reset. This included wiping out all files, data and apps from all hard drives and reinstalling windows. The process took about 8-hours so I know it gave a good cleaning. When I boot the computer it goes to the Cortana set-up screen that you get when you turn on a new system for the first time so I know its a clean version of windows.

Is there anything else I should do before handing the computer over in the exchange?

Thanks.

You've probably done enough to hide things from the average user, but if you're really worried take your drives out, because it apparently takes a great deal to make data irrecoverable.

[Redwolf]

I don't think any of your steps actually wiped the storage blocks. Deleting and formatting isn't doing it.

The easiest way to get it done is to write a large (useless) file until the disk is full. That way most of those blocks holding deleted data get overwritten. On a SSD there always is a reserve of blocks that you cannot reach without talking to the SSD itself. They are hard to reach for average users, though.

[SirAndrewD]

I always leave my dirty movies on there as a thank you for the next owner.

[Gusington]

Thank you