Formatting and reinstalling alone won't completely cover your tracks.

You'd have to use a program to zero out every sector on the drive and then format/reinstall.

But as Luke says, they'll probably just wipe the drive anyway.

Just installing the OS again doesn't wipe it, you'd have to format the hard drive first.

Il ask if he has. its just incase they look through it and see stuff such as porn that hes watched via his hardrive :lol:

Have you got an operating system disc for the laptop? Because if you have, when you install a fresh version of windows, everything is deleted off your computer and its as if you have only just took it out of the box.

Edit: I would imagine though, when your mate hands in his laptop, they will probably wipe it and put a fresh version on anyway. :)

[Edited on 10-04-2011 by LukesCorsaSXi]

Is there anyway of deleting everything from a laptop, like a history of whats been viewed on the laptop etc? Basically anything thats kept on there after something has been deleted? Internet and non internet, such as films watched on a hardrive plugged into the laptop
Not for me btw :lol: Someone at work who has to hand back his works laptop