Thanks, Dennis!
I still have a lot of programs on the computer so I assume you mean I delete all of these programs and then do the "Wipe Free Space" right? Again, I'm not great at all with computers.
And yes I do seem to have D: drive as a recovery partition. I honestly don't know what that means though
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Thanks a ton! P.S. I'm not 100% sure I am going to sell the computer so unfortunately I won't be able to test some of this advice right away at least. That's probably frustrating to you guys (sorry).
Yep, on my PC it was the D: partition as well, and no need to apologise. Just come back if you decide to sell it, and we'll give you any guidance you need then.
Using the Recovery Partition usually gives you two options. A "Destructive Recovery" and a "Non Destructive Recovery".
The non destructive version will wipe everything from your hard drive except your personal data kept in any of the "My Documents" system folders. "My Pictures", "My Music" etc., and then reinstall, from the Recovery Partition, the programs that were present when the computer was shipped from the factory.
A fresh start/clean slate, so to speak.
That's what it's supposed to do, but the first "Non Destructive Recovery" I carried out took everything. Thankfully I had the sense to back up all my personal data first.
The "Destructive Recovery" wipes your Hard Drive clean of everything, and then reinstalls, again from the Recovery Partition, all the factory shipped programs.
All the above is based on my Presario Desktop running XP. My daughters Lenovo Notebook has a completely different type of recovery system, and there may be other variations, but the one I describe I believe is the most common.
CCleaners "Wipe Free Space" will do just that. It won't touch any software, just securely overwrite the empty and available to be overwritten space.
You would have to uninstall (not delete) any programs you wanted rid of yourself, and then check through your computer to make sure all personal data was gone. Far better to reinstall Windows if you can.
So come back when and if you need help with that.