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ChrisBoom

Member

Registered: 6th Dec 06
Location: Highland
User status: Offline

10th Feb 08 at 21:19

Im selling my desktop, and want to clear everything off it, but everything is on one partition, and I dont want to format the lot.

Any ideas?

PhilC

Member

Registered: 21st Jan 06
Location: Lancs, UK
User status: Offline

10th Feb 08 at 21:32

So you just wanna leave it with windows?

ChrisBoom

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Registered: 6th Dec 06
Location: Highland
User status: Offline

10th Feb 08 at 22:01

quote:
Originally posted by PhilC
So you just wanna leave it with windows?

Pretty much

Just spent a good part of 2 hours just uninstalling everything, and moving all my files to one folder, ready to be written to DVD

Member

Registered: 10th Sep 03
User status: Offline

10th Feb 08 at 22:02

Just format the partition you want to fuck off then

Member

Registered: 10th Sep 03
User status: Offline

10th Feb 08 at 22:02

Although you'll be able to recover the data pretty easily. You're best of running a program called boot and nuke, then just re-installing Windows.

[Edited on 10-02-2008 by ed]

ChrisBoom

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Registered: 6th Dec 06
Location: Highland
User status: Offline

10th Feb 08 at 22:04

quote:
Originally posted by ed
Just format the partition you want to fuck off then

Its just I dont want to format windows too, everything is on one partition, I should of sectioned windows off from my files when I built the computer.

andy1868

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Registered: 22nd Jun 06
Location: Burscough, Lancashire
User status: Offline

10th Feb 08 at 22:06

you spent 2 hours deleting everything off? you could have formatted and updated in that time

ChrisBoom

Member

Registered: 6th Dec 06
Location: Highland
User status: Offline

10th Feb 08 at 22:07

quote:
Originally posted by andy1868
you spent 2 hours deleting everything off? you could have formatted and updated in that time

Well, most of that was sorting all my documents into the right folders, the actual getting rid was only 30 mins topps

drax

Member

Registered: 5th Feb 05
Location: Sittingbourne, Kent
User status: Offline

10th Feb 08 at 22:20

You can reinstall windows, ontop of itself, it just deletes everything in the my documents / startups stuff

It might create backups, and could cause errors in the registery / driver conflicts though.

it is ALWAYS better to format the drive and do a fresh install. Saves alot of bother in the long run

ChrisBoom

Member

Registered: 6th Dec 06
Location: Highland
User status: Offline

10th Feb 08 at 22:39

Its done now anyway, its pretty much bare windows now, bar a few programs that il be useful for the next owner, CS2 etc

drax

Member

Registered: 5th Feb 05
Location: Sittingbourne, Kent
User status: Offline

10th Feb 08 at 23:42

You're selling a pc and keeping the hard drive in?....

Are you mad?

_Allan_

Member

Registered: 24th Mar 04
User status: Online

11th Feb 08 at 07:32

quote:
Originally posted by drax
You're selling a pc and keeping the hard drive in?....

Are you mad?

I have with no issues unless the buyer had close links with someone in CSI I doubt anything interesting can be recovered from a drive that has been zero'd and formatted twice by the average user.

drax

Member

Registered: 5th Feb 05
Location: Sittingbourne, Kent
User status: Offline

11th Feb 08 at 08:13

Ive recovered data from years back by accident whilst looking for files that I accidentally deleted, on a drive thats been formatted countless times. Where does it say he has zero'd it

_Allan_

Member

Registered: 24th Mar 04
User status: Online

11th Feb 08 at 08:47

quote:
Originally posted by drax
Ive recovered data from years back by accident whilst looking for files that I accidentally deleted, on a drive thats been formatted countless times. Where does it say he has zero'd it

It doesn't say he's formatted it either. Your original message said is he mad for selling a PC with a hardrive in. I was mearly pointing out that if had been zero'd and formatted several times it would be difficult to recover any worth while data.

drax

Member

Registered: 5th Feb 05
Location: Sittingbourne, Kent
User status: Offline

11th Feb 08 at 19:13

In that case there is a toaster orbiting mars, I believe you should check it out.

_Allan_

Member

Registered: 24th Mar 04
User status: Online

11th Feb 08 at 21:07

Drax I didn't say it can't be done

but I doubt the people with specialist equipment or the time and money to spend looking on an average users desktop unless there was a legal issue etc.. I doubt any software solution can do this. You need an electon microscope or something and I don't know too many people with them.

drax

Member

Registered: 5th Feb 05
Location: Sittingbourne, Kent
User status: Offline

11th Feb 08 at 22:39