Good day, dear friend. If you decide to sell old computer or a laptop that has served you faithfully, you have a completely logical question - how to clean a computer or laptop before selling it.

Why is cleaning necessary before sale? There are two options:

• delete all personal information
• remove all unnecessary applications and clean the system to increase performance. Otherwise, a competent buyer will be able to reduce the price without any problems.

We will prepare the computer for sale in several stages:

1. Removing all programs except basic ones
2. Formatting non-system partitions
3. System cleaning

Of course, before cleaning, you need to copy the information that you want to save to some storage medium. If you don’t have a flash drive at hand, you can use Google and Yandex drive.

Removing programs before selling your computer:

Since we need to clean up a computer or laptop without losing performance, the Ctrl+A Shift Delete option will not work for us. In general, I highly recommend not deleting programs by deleting the program folder.

There is only one the right way removing programs from your computer

Click “Start” > “Control Panel”

Select the “Uninstall programs” section

Select a program from the list and click “Delete”. Each program has its own uninstaller. But in most cases, click “Ok” > “Next” > “Next”, etc. Please note that in some cases you will be given a choice between “Upgrade” and “Delete”. As you probably guessed, select Delete.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to remove several programs at once, so you will have to wait until the end of the current process to start a new one.

This way we remove all programs except drivers, office, browser and archiver

Formatting disks before selling your computer:

Formatting will allow you to delete absolutely all data from hard drive. We will format all partitions except the system one (Drive C:).

Open “My Computer” and right-click on the desired local drive

Select “Format”

Be sure to uncheck the “Quick (cleaning tables of contents)” checkbox and click start. The duration of the formatting procedure depends on the size of the partition.

We repeat the procedure for all partitions except the system one.

How to clean the system before selling your computer:

Let's go to ccleaner program website and download the latest version

Install and run the program

We check all the boxes in all sections on all tabs of the Cleaner section. This program will remove all junk, temporary files and saved passwords . It is important to close all programs and the browser. Click “Analysis”

We are waiting for the analysis to complete.

We are waiting for the cleaning to complete.

1. Tell, how to delete everything from your computer without a trace? I decided to sell my system unit along with the hard drive and buy a new one based on a quad-core processor. Before selling, I deleted everything from the hard drive by simple formatting, then advertised it in the newspaper. While I was waiting for the buyer, I came across your section about and imagine, I restored most of the files using the programs described there, including all personal photos and home videos among the recovered ones! I formatted the hard drive several times in a row, but still some of the files are not completely deleted. I came to the conclusion that it is better to keep the hard drive, but on the other hand, why do I need an old 250 GB SATA 2 screw? Tell me, there are free programs that can delete files from your computer without the possibility of restoring them.
2. Hello, can you please help me completely delete all data on my laptop before selling it? The laptop contained a lot of confidential data, which I deleted and then reinstalled the operating system, but a familiar technician says that this is clearly not enough and all files can be restored using special utilities.
3. Hello admin, I read your articles about a program that removes soft bads on a drive, but I want to say that there is also an Acronis Drive Cleanser program created to remove user information from hard drives without the possibility of recovery, it also forcibly writes random numbers to sectors of the hard disk in several passes and has a double effect. Firstly, complete deletion of information on the computer, and secondly, treatment of the hard drive from bad blocks. Personally, after using this program, I have fewer sectors with a large read delay.

Hello friends! Of course, there is more than one such program. In today’s article I suggest using the following utilities:

1. Acronis Drive Cleaner- specially developed by a famous developer to permanently delete files from your computer. Acronis Drive Cleanser is installed along with the programAcronis True Image Home 2015 and works in trial mode for 15 days. What is important, in the program Acronis True Image Home 2015, you can create a bootable USB flash drive and boot your laptop from it, then also delete all data using the utility Acronis Drive Cleanser. Boot disk Acronis does not have any time restrictions.

2 . The second program we are considering, also includes a special tool for completely deleting data and is completely free.

Most of the deleted information can always be recovered

All experienced users know that regular formatting does not completely delete your files; information about them remains in HDD sectors for a long time yet. The files are simply marked as deleted and most data recovery programs will easily recover information that you think has been completely erased.

What Acronis Drive Cleanser does

The program repeatedly overwrites all sectors on the hard drive with random numbers in 35 passes using special algorithms, which completely erases previously existing information and makes it impossible to recover files on such media 100%.

In addition to the official U.S. deletion standard, U.S. Standard, DoD 5220.22-M Acronis Drive Cleanser uses its own effective data destruction algorithms.

• Note: As the author of the third letter correctly noted, numerous rewrites of information on the hard drive, in some cases, can reduce the number of problem sectors (with a long read delay), including bad blocks.

Go to the official website of the program

http://www.acronis.com/ru-ru/

Click Try for free.

Download the installer and run it

Launch trial version

Tools. More tools.

Choosing a tool Drive Cleaner

You cannot make a mistake in this window, otherwise you will delete data from the wrong drive.

In my case, three are connected to the computer hard drives, you need to delete all information without the possibility of recovery on the first hard drive with a capacity of 250 GB.

Acronis Drive Cleaner can destroy data separately on any partition you select. I want to delete everything, so oh I mark all available partitions on the HDD

The program offers several ways to completely destroy information, for simple user The first domestic method will be sufficient - Russian standard, GOST R50739-95.

The most reliable, but rather time-consuming way to delete files is the Peter Gutman algorithm in 35 passes.

Check the box Delete selected partitions permanently and click Proceed.

Hover your mouse over the program icon in the tray and find out how much time is left until the operation is completed. But looking ahead, I’ll say that a 250 GB hard drive took 20 minutes.

Bootable USB flash drive Acronis True Image Home 2015

If you need to delete all data from a laptop, then create and load a laptop from it, select:

Tools and Utilities->Acronis Drive Cleaner, then everything happens the same as in the previous case.

AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard Edition

Fully free program with a similar tool.

Friends, I won’t repeat myself; read about how to download and install in our other detailed article.

After installing the program, in its main window, select the hard drive we need with the left mouse, then click on the button Erasing a hard drive.

Select the required number of passes and click OK.

For those interested, read the continuation.

Permanently erasing files from a hard drive requires some knowledge, and when working with USB and SSD drives, you can fall into a trap.

Different drives provide different options for completely deleting files. Do you consider the file permanently deleted? No matter how it is: most of the documents that you erased in Lately, safely remain in their original form on your drive. This is bad if you need to give a seemingly empty flash drive to a colleague or want to sell your old laptop, but good if you accidentally deleted the result of days of work. With the help of appropriate utilities, your data can be recovered in just a couple of mouse clicks. If you need to reliably and with a guarantee delete information from the media, you should do a little more operations than simply pressing the “Delete” key.

The crux of the problem is this: the operating room Windows system is extremely sensitive to all files when it comes to deleting them. To protect against user error, after the user presses the “Delete” key, the operating system moves the file to be deleted to the Recycle Bin. You can erase it from the Recycle Bin manually, or after it becomes full, automatic removal to start with the oldest files. The user can set the Basket size independently for each available hard system disk. It should be remembered that even after clearing it, and after deleting the file bypassing the Recycle Bin (using the key combination “Shift+Delete”), the contents of the document still remain on the hard drive. The reason is simple: the file is physically erased only after the area it occupies on the hard drive is filled with other data.

Obviously, such a deletion would require the same amount of time as it would take to simply copy a file. That's why Windows simply marks the entries in the Master File Table corresponding to the erased data as deleted. This table combines file names with physical blocks on the hard drive. Thus, the contents of the file remain recorded on the hard drive, although the operating system has already “forgot” about it.

The same thing happens when you format the media. In this case, the OS completely replaces the main file table and other metadata file system clean versions. In the data area, all files remain unchanged. The only difference between normal and quick formatting is that in the latter case the media is not checked for physical errors.

Why does Windows only pretend to erase files?

Windows stores information about each file in a Master File Table. This hidden file, which only the operating system can access. It contains file names as well as metadata such as the username and permissions for the file. In addition, the MFT indicates where each file is stored on the hard drive and whether it is fragmented (that is, whether it is located in several blocks in different sectors of the disk). When you erase a file, it is simply marked as deleted in MFT. The contents of this file remain on the hard drive in its original state, and special utilities, researching HDD for the presence of a structure of known file types, they allow you to restore it without loss. That is why it is important not only to delete confidential data, but also to rewrite the disk using specialized utilities. Only this will make recovery impossible.

Here’s how I delete it: Right-click on the file that I want to delete
A window will appear with suggested options for action, select “DELETE”, everything will be deleted into the trash, and then you will need to empty the trash and that’s it! On the left side in "Tasks for the cart" select empty the cart and click on this button (suggestion) and it will be deleted!

Download any GNU/Linux live-cd.
Open your console.
there run the following command 3 times (at least 1 time):
for i in "/dev/d?" ; do dd if=/dev/null of=$i ; done

2 options:
1. My computer - select drive (C, D, system files usually written only to drive C, if the hard drive is not partitioned) - right mouse button - format. The operation starts, but may not complete because You launch this action from the disk, and then, roughly speaking, you begin to “shred” the disk itself.
2. Subject to availability installation disk: As a rule, installation disks have a formatting program. We install the disk - load it - select formatting from the suggested actions/programs in the menu.
The fact is that during the so-called system demolition, the files can be saved, so it’s better to format it - you get the original (empty) hard drive.

Start installing Windows from the installation disk and when it comes to choosing which one to install on, delete all partitions. Then break it again and continue the installation. Then there is guaranteed to be nothing left except the installed Windows.

Reliable option with boot disk or floppy disk, run the utility provided by the hard drive manufacturer or a universal one and fill disk 0. In this case, no data will be saved on the hard drive.

PS In companies with a serious level of security, when recycling a hole is drilled in the hard drive - this is the most reliable way protection against data recovery!
So if possible, remove the hard drive and keep it for yourself! and install a new one bought in a store on your computer; the price of a new one for 250 GB is about 1,500 rubles

Even after formatting and deleting partitions, it is possible to restore data. There is an option, after formatting, to completely fill this hard drive with some kind of nonsense

You can permanently delete all files from your computer using Wipeinfo in Norton Utilities.

It will help you to permanently delete selected important data. special program, such as Eraser, which is a program by independent developers from around the world and is published as open source.

Eraser can delete on a schedule; it is also notable for the fact that it can completely destroy not only small, but also huge files in a matter of minutes. Erasing occurs in several passes followed by scanning. If traces of recent presence of information are detected, the operation is repeated.

You can download Eraser here: sourceforge net

Over time, computer performance decreases. And this is primarily due to “cluttering” operating system temporary files, logs, etc. The best decision in this situation, reinstall the OS. But what to do if it’s scary to do it yourself, or you simply don’t have enough time to configure the initial parameters and unpack the software? Read our article. She will tell you how to completely clean your computer without uninstalling Windows.

Types of computer cleaning

To solve this problem, you need to apply all known ways to increase PC performance. Completing only one of the steps does not guarantee successful resolution of the problem.

Removing junk using CCleaner

This software cleans up all the tails after uninstalling programs, surfing the Internet and deleting files. Therefore, for the initial cleaning stage best application can not found. So do the following:

1. Download CCleaner from this link if you don't have it.
2. Install on your computer following the prompts of the Installation Wizard.
3. Open the application and go to the “Cleaning” tab – “Windows”.
   
   
4. In the list that appears, check the box next to the fields you want to run.
   

   Attention! Deleting temporary files, emptying the trash, etc. it is impossible to cancel. Data will be lost forever!

5. Next, go to the “Applications” tab and also activate the required fields. This module does a great job of clearing cache, cookies and browser history.
   
   
   

   Attention! Pay attention to the “Saved Passwords” item. When activated, all login data for sites will be deleted. Create backup copy or uncheck the box.

6. Now all that remains is to press the “Clear” key, confirm the action and wait for the operation to complete.
   
   
7. After completing this module, go to the "Registry" tab. Here, all parameters are selected by default; it is not recommended to edit them.
8. Now click “Search for problems”, and after scanning, click “Fix”.
   
   
9. In a new window, refuse to create a backup copy.
   
   
   

Freeing up RAM

The fullness of RAM is one of the most important factors. There is no way to clean it brief instructions, the issue must be approached with all seriousness. Therefore, we recommend that you read the article: “”

Defragmenting your hard drive

This measure not only increases the performance of the system, but also extends the life of the equipment. Users copy, move, and delete files all the time. This leaves a serious imprint on the functioning of the hard drive.

The fact is that during the above manipulations with the object, data is written to free memory cells. If the file is too large and does not fit in a certain area, it is divided (fragmented) and recorded in different areas of the HDD. This, in turn, increases the hard drive’s response time to provide information and causes stuttering.

Attention! This operation will completely delete all data. Create a backup important files. Do not format the system partition!

I will end here. Now you know how to completely clean your computer without uninstalling Windows. Be careful with formatting and keep your computer software clean. Good luck!