How do I ensure that all my information is wiped clean from my PC before I sell it?
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The best way to go is to format the hard drive but not in Quick Mode, in Full Mode, but if your machine is a HP, Gateway, Compaq, Toshiba, you can do the recovey option with Full Format of the hard drive, when you bought the machine they came with a Set of Recovery Disk so you can leave the machine like the first day you bought it. But if you don’t have that sets of disk, then with a bootable disk with the Format command, write format c: on the command prompt. I will attach a link with information of how to format a hard drive. Good Luck.
Format the hard drive.
Unfortunately, formatting the drive won’t remove the data. A good data retrieval utility will pull piles of files from a formatted drive. Your best bet is to use a shredder utility like Eraser, which you can download for free at http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/
Run it on your drive from another drive and you can be fairly confident that no one but the FBI or the NSA can get your info.
Take the hard drive out and hit it with a hammer! Let them buy a new drive for it or put a new one in. You can’t remove all your information.