As the title suggests I would like to know how to wipe an old laptop before selling it. Simply want to remove any sensitive or private information that exist so a buyer cannot act maliciously.
How do I go about doing so? Any videos/tutorials you recommend on this process?
For any specifics it is an HP laptop running Windows 10.
Please feel free to ask any other questions and I am greatly appreciative of any help.
You can do it the standard way, or you can do it the paranoid way:
The standard way: - Create a new User account with Admin rights. Sign out of the old account and sign in with the new user account. Delete the old user account and its files. Go to System/Recovery/Reset this PC and remove everything. That will leave the system in factory state.
The paranoid way: - download and run the Windows media creation tool. Create a bootable USB drive. Open the laptop, remove the hard drive and replace with a new one. Boot from the USB drive and reinstall Windows.
You forgot to make a pass of random character in unused space, you can totally recover a lot of data after installation of Windows in your “paranoid way”.
How can you recover ‘a lot of data’ from a brand new hard drive, genius??