wipe out all personal files

[something]

Hi. I'm in the auction business. We frequently sell used computers. Rather than pulling and destroying the hard drives to make sure no personal data gets into the wrong hands, I'd like to find an app that I can just wipe out all the personal files. I found c cleaner and it looks like it might work for me.

 

 

 

"Clean out files from a PC you're giving away or selling. You can also wipe free space so the remnants of any files you deleted previously will be erased forever."

 

That would, I assume, leave the operating system intact and whatever programs are installed on the drive. I noticed elsewhere in the forum that I'd have to run the program for each user.

 

My question is about the actual use of this program. Would this work for me if I put c cleaner on a CD and used it on each machine before selling it? And, can I be fairly confident that all personal files will be wiped? I noticed somewhere in this forum that c cleaner was described as a "softer" drive cleaner, or some word to that effect.

 

Thanks in advance for any help.

[rridgely]

CCleaner will wipe out stuff like browser history, recently used documents, ect ect.(look in the program to see all the stuff it cleans)

This would do a lot to preserve the privacy of the original owner, however if they have all their tax info saved in a word file, or all the passwords saved in their browser then no its not going to get that.

 

You could probably spend a few minutes going through the computer for files and stuff and then use ccleaner and be good to go. Thats if you feel comfortable that this is sufficient.

 

Personally if it were me I would probably nuke the computers with DBAN and then reinstall a fresh copy of windows. Dban will completely destroy ALL data on the computer to a point where it is inaccessible.(operating system and all). Sort of a happy medium between physically destroying the hard drive and making sure your not selling a computer that could contain sensitive information:

http://www.dban.org/

[Andavari]

Personally if it were me I would probably nuke the computers with DBAN and then reinstall a fresh copy of windows. Dban will completely destroy ALL data on the computer to a point where it is inaccessible.

I'd say this is the best solution to protect the previous owner from fraud or identity theft - tis the age we live in. Of course it takes more time however it's the most secure approach, plus any Windows issues would be resolved by having a clean install.