Preparing my PC for it's new owner

[myojo]

Having bought a new PC, I am giving the old one to my girlfriend's brother. The hard drive (20GB) is about 2/3 full and I would like to clear all my rubbish off it. The PC was built by a mate using new parts from Ebay and then he installed XP etc. Please could someone tell me the best way to achieve this?
Thanks.

[vehelpfulguy]

If you mean clear your rubbish off it to move to your new PC then use a USB key that plugs into your USB slot and move the files that way.

If you mean clear your rubbish of it (delete it) but keep the Windows XP then that is more difficult.

As has been said here many times, it is very difficult to delete all your personal info as Windows keeps files and information in all sorts of secret places.

The best way is to completely reinstall Windows XP and do a format of the hard drive while you do it.

That should remove your personal information from all but the determined person.

Without a reinstall of XP there will be some personal info hidden somewhere and you do not know if the new owner (or a friend of theirs) is a bit of a hacker who will poke round the system to see what they can find.

It may sound a bit drastic but identity theft is getting more common and old PCs are a good place to find the info.

Suppose they sell the PC on after you have sold it to them, you do not know who may get hold of it.

[khana]

I'd certainly recommend formating the hard drive and reinstalling windows, but before that I would certainly download a free shredder off the net and use that to wipe your hard drive using a program that wipes the space multiple times.
Formatting is all well and good, but does not sufficiently clean the drive so that it is unrecoverable.