how to wipe details off a computer

[pinkcowprint]

my mum wants to sell her computer,the only passwords etc are from a couple of holidays she booked,shes only ever used it for searching internet normally,if anyone bought it could they access information and is there anything she can do before she sells it to get rid of any info?

[scotman]

she can format the hard drive before selling although this is not totally secure. There are better programs available and some are free. If you google for 'secure delete' or similar you will probably come up with something.

[jake-the-peg]

It depends on how certain you need to be.

You could just delete the files and clear your browser cache and history it's not that difficult for someone technical to recover that or parts of that if they have the time and inclination

As Scotsman says you can format the hard disk (not a quick format)- this will delete every thing - things can still be recovered with special kit.

The erasing tools write patterns repeatedly over the disk - in theory making it totally irrecoverable - with a Government size budget? maybe something could be recoverred.

I work for a security company - our hard disk are distroyed physically in crushers.

You pay's your money and takes your choice

If the buyer is expecting the operating system to still be on the machine though they may not be too pleased if the hard disk is formatted and they need to buy and install a new one

[zingo1327]

You could download "Zilla Data Nuker" for free. This lets you overwrite files (or in your case C drive) up to 5 times