Erase Hard Drive Windows 7

[Ogie Ogilthorpe 640]

I have an old Dell laptop and want to recycle/donate it. How do I completely erase the hard drive?

 

Is it possible to keep windows but completely erase all personal data so it can be used by someone else?

[kevwun 16437]

You can create a new user account that has admin rights and then log in to the pc with it.  Then you can delete your old user folder.  The only way to erase files to the point where they can't be recovered with special software is to us a program that will overwrite the drive at least 3 times with 1's and 0's. 

[TwiceHorn 32076]

https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-clean-install-windows-2624904

[kevwun 16437]

If you are giving it away, I would take the hard drive out and either keep it or destroy it if you don't want to go through the trouble of completely erasing the drive and reinstalling win7.

[elfenix 34748]

that laptop almost certainly has the windows keys baked into it.  so what you do is download DBAN, let it run and delete everything, then install windows 7 again.  

if the laptop has an SSD instead of a spinner you have to go a different route, either using the drive maker's toolkit or secure erase (if supported). 

Edited August 23, 2019 by elfenix

[kevwun 16437]

I like easeus partition manager because you can attach drives to your pc to wipe them instead of running it on every computer.  They have a free version.

Edited August 23, 2019 by kevwun