Resetting a PC to sell on

Am thinking of selling on my laptop - what is the best approach to getting it ready for that - should I reset the PC under the settings / options? Obviously I will not keep to choose any personal files and I will make sure our office 365 currently installed on it is uninstalled and removed before selling on. Presumably that option to 'reset this pc' will return it to how it was when I turned it on the first time having been delivered from the manufacturer?

Once reset, what happens to the laptop which is listed under 'Devices' if I view my Microsoft account in a browser. At the moment I see my current desktop and this laptop listed under devices. Will it automatically dis-associate itself from my account and disappear from this list or will I need to remove it? We have a family account setup, so the laptop also currently shows under 'devices' my wife's account and my son's child account. Will these also disappear? Basically once sold I do not want any trace of the laptop on our Microsoft accounts. Presumably there will be no unforeseen knock on effect for our MS accounts on our desktop which will be keeping.

Thanks,
Wayne

Hello Wayne,

Resetting the laptop is usually the best option and then you can hand over all the software and recovery disks (if any) that came with it. Laptops vary with how this works, some come with a hidden recovery drive containing a full windows OS installation, others rely on recovery disks or that you create one yourself.

Did you upgrade to W10 after you bought it? If so you might want to leave it with W10 and do a clean install and set up a new local account that you can pass on to the new owner. When you clean install you can do a full reformat of the hard disk(s) to be sure any personal data is completely removed.

The Microsoft account may still show the old laptop details but you can easily remove it from your account (and other family members) if this happens. There should be no knock on effects.

Thanks Phil for the info, that's perfect - it came with Windows. I'll get it reset and then set up a local account as administrator called something like 'initial user' so anyone that buys can easily login.

Out of curiosity, do you have a recovery DVD/flash drive or a DVD/flash drive with the Windows ISO on it?

It came with a Windows 10 DVD installation media. Presume it's for build 10586 but I've not used it as everything was pre-installed by the manufacturer.

Since you have the full installation media on DVD, you may wish to secure erase the entire drive then install Windows back onto it before selling it. Secure erasing will make it so data can't be recovered, as it writes over everything and zero's it out.

Disk - Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command - Windows 7 Help Forums

It's totally up to you though.

Ok, thank you - definitely sounds like a safer option!

Scottyboy99 said:

Ok, thank you - definitely sounds like a safer option!

Yes it is. A format does not remove files on the drive. With a file recovery program a lot of files can be restored.