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how to wipe a computer? 
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Asked by NorCal from Hollister, CAAnswered 14 years ago.
42 Answers
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This "question" is an obvious attempt by MerchantCircle or someone working for or on behalf of merchant circle to drum up business and traffic to their web site. "NorCal" has asked literally hundreds of very generic questions with little or no clarifying information, such as "how to wipe a computer?", "what services are provided by internet?", "how much does 30 gygabit internet cost yahoo answers?", "how to solder electronics?", "how to make your own computer software?", "dell laptop latitude d620 forgot passward how to unlock?" and many many more. For a full list of the questions you can click on "NorCal" and then "See all my questions", or just go here: Very lame, imho, and a waste of time for the people who think they're actually helping someome that needs helping.
Links: www.merchantcircle.comAnswered by Eastside PC Shorewood, WI, 53211, 414-331-0949 (Novice with 15 pts.)
Answered 14 years ago. -
We recommend using a product called It effectively overwrites all the information on the harddrive with zeros and meets government specifications with regards to Data Erasure (DoD 5220.22 M) . Most programs or utilities erase the section on the harddrive that has the locations of the files that are on the harddrive....makes it "seem" like you have an empty harddrive because its forgotten where the files are but in reality, those files are still there and can be recovered quite easily. Good Luck! ePRO,LLC : Computer repair in CT
Links: www.killdisk.com
Answered by ePRO Computer Repair
20 Lincoln Drive,
Southington,
CT, 06489,
860-384-7003
(Mentor with 274 pts.)
Answered 14 years ago. -
Reformat the hard drive. If you need to be very secure, use a utility that will write random 1s and zeros to the drive. If you want to be extremely secure, run that process several times.
The only way to completely securely eliminate data from a hard drive, in my opinion, is to destroy the drive. Even then, some data may be recoverable.Answered by Lindauer Mac Consulting 24 7th Street, Petaluma, CA, 94952, 707-479-6170 (Novice with 8 pts.)
Answered 14 years ago. -
This question has been flagged for review. Thank you for bringing it to our attention.
NorCal is a spammer. Get rid of him now.
Besides, anyone who is stupid enough to ask how to wipe a computer??? I mean really. You get a towel and start wiping! How hard is that?Answered by Etech P.O. Box 500, Placerville, CO, 81430, 970-239-4948 (Novice with 22 pts.)
Answered 14 years ago. -
There are freeware downloads that will wipe all personal data from an PC, but be careful of spyware.
If you want to wipe it before throwing it away, remove the hard drive, open it and smash the platter. That eliminates the chance anyone could read the data again.
Answered by Tomorrows Internet Solutions
PO Box 991,
Lombard,
IL, 60148,
630-953-3100
(Novice with 107 pts.)
Answered 13 years ago. -
I suggest using a program called BC Wipe. It was formerly certified by Defense Security Services for wiping computer hard-drives prior to destruction for classified information. It isn't very expensive, but it does a very thorough job. Simply formating the drive won't actually wipe anything. If you look at the hard drive all of the files are still there, even if you removed the partition. What a program like BC Wipe does is make several passes over the hard drive to "shuffle" data in the files. Once it is done, the files are litterally all gone and impossible to recover or read from.
Answered by Kennedy Computer Consulting
761 E University Drive,
Mesa,
AZ, 85203,
480-626-4024
(Novice with 26 pts.)
Answered 13 years ago. -
goto the run command window & type Format C: answer yes to all questions. You will need a way to put an operating system back on the drive though.
Otherwise get a operating system setup disk and run it. During the setup it will ask if you want to delete the partition and then format in sequential steps.
Answered by Hyper Innovations
109 Parkway Dr.,
Smithfield,
NC, 27577,
919-975-6371
(Novice with 14 pts.)
Answered 14 years ago. -
I think you are asking how to wipe the data out of a computer's hard drive. The hard drive is the only place where data resides on you computer.
The first step would be to format the hard drive which erases all the data from the hard drive. Please know that this does not completely erase data as someone with the right tools and expertise and lot of free time :-) could still find your personal data even after you format it. Besides physical destruction of the hard drive, you can use special software to erase all the data for good. Most hard drive manufactures offer free software tools that you can use to erase all the data which is often refereed to as writing zero's to the drive.
There are also plenty of software that you can buy to do the same job and perhaps are easier to use .
Answered by ImageSys LLC
19110 Montgomery Village Ave. Suite 101, Gaithersburg, MD, 20886,
Montgomry Village,
MD, 20886,
301-740-9955
(Novice with 4 pts.)
Answered 14 years ago. -
Either boot from your operating system disk, or use the system recovery option by pressing F10 on the startup splash screen, for windows xp (all other operating systems are similar) follow through the insallation until you arrive at the screen that asks which partition you would like to install windows on, highlight the partition and hit D for delete, then create a new partition in the unpartitioned space, select your format, either fat or ntfs is fine, ntfs is preffered, when format is complete the computer will be wiped, and you may choose to either install windows or exit the installation. You may also use data lifeguard tools, by burning on a cd and booting from that.
Answered by Warner's Computer Repair Grand Haven, MI, 49417, 616-638-9881 (Novice with 33 pts.)
Answered 14 years ago. -
If you are wiping it to give it away - just remove the hard drive, the part that contains your personal information, it's what the government does.
Wiping it for personal use, use the recovery disk that came with your computer and use the destructive recovery option.
Last choice is to google a free program called "zero disk".
Answered by Tidewater Computer Repair Service
216 E. Ottawa RD,
Virginia Beach,
VA, 23462,
757-406-1664
(Novice with 3 pts.)
Answered 14 years ago.
