Q: I'm inheriting a PC in a few days, but it's seen a lot of use over the past few years, and is packed with software I don't need or want. I have a copy of Microsoft Office on CD to install, and everything else I need I can download from the internet. So I want to know if there's a program I can download or a method I can use to wipe everything out of this old PC's storage space. I've done some searching, and most of the tutorials I've found are all concerned with wiping drives that you're going to get rid of afterward, to prevent data theft at a later point in time. But I'm still going to be using this hard drive after the wipe. I'm just looking to get a completely clean start. Thanks in advance.
A: I buy a lot of used computers, repair them and give them away to friends, relatives and charities. So I routinely do exactly what you want to do. However, when you wipe a hard drive (by formatting it), you also lose the operating system and will have to re-install it. If you do not have the installation disks for the operating system, you will have to buy it. Windows XP is a couple hundred bucks these days, so save the op system if you can. This makes cleaning the hard drive a lot harder but is the only way to save the operating system. I've done it when necessary, but as I've said, it takes work and time. Start by manually deleting all the personal information in the previous owner's account. Then go to Conrol Panel Add and Delete Programs and uninstall all the programs you don't want any longer. You also should run a good virus scanner (AVG is a good free one) and a good spyware scanner (I like Ad-aware by Lavasoft and Spybot Search and Destroy). Make sure the operating system is working okay, and download all updates for it. You may also want to rename the account for the new owner. You can do this by going to User Accounts in Control Panel. When you have a pretty clean hard drive with nothing on it but the op system and the virus / spyware scanner programs, run defrag to get the hard drive ready for all the new programs you want to add. When I wipe a hard drive, I end up with exactly what I've described. After I install the anti-virus and anti-spyware programs, I install MS Office from a disk.