Free PC Cleaners

352 wrote:

1492 wrote:

strollin wrote:

Assuming this is a Windows computer, I'd create a new user account for your grandson, assign that account admin rights, then login to it and delete your old account. One of the options when deleting an account is to also delete any files associated with it. Depending on the age of the grandson, you may not want to give his account admin rights but you will need to create a new account with admin rights to be able to login and delete your old account.

Why would one need to smash the hard drive of an old laptop if it is to be given to one's grand children? :hI would follow the above, and simply delete any other residual files you chose. Then, overwrite the free space by using Windows built-in cipher command. Just hold down Windows Key+R, and type CMD and ENTER. At the prompt type cipher /w:c where c is the drive or partition whose free space you want overwritten. Press ENTER to start.

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This is good advice, but you could also just reinstall the operating system which will completly wipe the HD.

There are several drive wipe programs that make multiple passes writing 101010 Then 010101 then 00000 then 11111 over and over to the drive, at least 3 passes of this and you are well past the point where a casual hacker with normal resources can dig out the data (The FBI however can still read the drive)

The Mil-Spec, starts with drilling holes, smashing with hammer, blowing up with hand gernade, flaming with flame thrower and running over with a tank.

But you need not go that far.

One method I've used when absolute security is not a concern is to overwrite all of the free space on the disk, after the personal data has been deleted and the trash emptied.

1) Delete all personal data
2) Defragment the hard drive (to throw off the file pointers)
3) Load an innocuous random file onto a "data" folder on the hard drive - a high-reolution photo of your grandson should do.
4) Copy-and-paste the photo - Windows should automatically rename the new photo
5) Press CTRL-A to select all photos, then conduct the copy-and-paste process once again.
6) Repeat step 5) until you have created approximately 100 or so copies of the photo
7) Conduct a copy-and-paste operation on the "data" folder containing the 100 photos
8) Press CTRL-A to select all folders, then conduct the copy-and-paste process once again.
9) Repeat step 8) until you have filled up the hard drive with folders containing nothing but photos of your grandson. You'll be surprised how quickly this happens, even if it isn't exactly an exponentially increasing function.
10) Finally, delete ALL "data" folders you have created - now, if someone attempts to recover data from your "erased" hard drive, all that they will find are photos of your grandson.

Admittedly, this is the "cheapskate" version of the DoD-approved program that conducts multiple passes of writing random patterns of ones and zeros across all blank portions of the drive, but the method has come in handy when the program was not available.

Format the hard drive, but then you have to reinstall everything.

Pepperoni has the best advice so far. Since you are giving this laptop to your grandson, there should be no need for an extreme cleaning. As mentioned previously, there should be software on the laptop to restore it to factory condition. If it didn't come with rescue disks, this is an opportune time to create them.

Once you do a factory restore, all old files will have been deleted.

Even after this process there are ways to retrieve information off the drive. One program that contains several functions to maintain a clean drive is CCleaner. One of the tools is 'Disk Wiper'. You can select to wipe only the free space which will leave all files intact and write data only to the unused portion of the drive. You can also select how many times to write over the unused areas.

Here's a link for CCleaner: link

Here are 2 other free cleaners (that are DOD compliant):

Darik's Boot and Nuke and Killdisk

Good luck.

There are 2 ways to clean a hard drive, 1. run a low level format which will just write 0's to all the sectors or 2. destroy the hard drive ( best choice but more expensive) and replace it with a new one.

Since the data is still there and the data that tells there is information on the drive is what is changed it is easy for the right people to pick thru your hard disk IF they get a hold of it.

Having said that, is there REALLY anything worth digging for on that drive that a regular format wouldn't clean out? you have to make that decision.

You should either have original install discs, or the factory install on the hard drive in its own partition. Check the makers webb site for instructions.

To remove all information and return the pc to factory new condition, the hard drive is formatted (wiped clean of everything) and a new install is done. The most time consuming part is doing updates from the MS update site.

Once all the updates are installed, make a restore point in order to roll back to a clean install in the future. Create restore points regularly in order to preserve newly added files. I make new restore points about every month.

Also make a startup disc in case you may need it. it holds files to start a balky pc.

AVAST makes a decent free antivirus.

Files that are deleted and emptied through the Recycle Bin become part of the drive's free space available for reuse. To make the files unrecoverable, just over-write the free space. You don't need an external utility or app, many of which just use the same Windows command, as the function is already built-in.

If you wanted to wipe the entire drive including Windows OS, then hard drives have firmware built-in called ATA Secure Erase. This makes all drive data unrecoverable. It's what I use as its hardware based, not software such as DBan, so very fast. The last 250G hard drive I wiped using Secure Erase took less than 30 minutes.

Just ask your grandson. He probably already knows how to "git 'er done".