Need to format/clean laptop HDD - Reinstalling Win 10 Question

Flogger23m · 26 Jan 2018

I am going to sell a laptop which currently has Win 10 installed (originally the laptop shipped with Win 8, I opted for the free upgrade). It is the only drive in the laptop and has Win 10 on it, so to be on the safe side I would prefer to do a full format, and then run a drive cleaning program. I have a few questions:

1) If I were to do a full format and then reinstall Win 10 on the same HDD/laptop, will it automatically activate?

2) Anything I should be aware of before doing a full format? I recall having some trouble a while back when installing Win 10 on another machine regarding GPT or UFEI. Anything I need to keep in mind regarding this? Hardware wise I will not do any changes.

3) What is the best way to reinstall Win 10 after I format the HDD? USB drive with Win 10 .ISO or installer?

4) The Win 10 USB tool download here seems to be down. Is there any other place I can get the files needed to make a USB drive with the Win 10 installer? I am hoping there is a place I can just download the installer, drop it on a USB drive and then boot from it.

Some questions that are not purely Win 10 related:

5) What is the best method for formatting and then cleaning the drive? I was considering running crap cleaner's drive wiper but that would require me to pull the HDD from my laptop, install it in the desktop and then do a full format, run the cleaner, and then format again. Is there any utility that can accomplish this without requiring me to physically pull the HDD from my laptop?

Disclaimer: All useful data has been copied off the drive/laptop.

dalchina · 26 Jan 2018

1. yes.

2. You will be installing build 1709- I assume that's what you have now and your Windows is up to date. Otherwise there will be changes.

You will get new drivers- which could possibly be later than what you have now.

3. If your PC is currently UEFI, GPT, then installation should be straightforward.

Clean installation:
Clean Install Windows 10 Installation Upgrade Tutorials

4. Includes link at Here's How step 1 to how to create a bootable USB drive for installation.

Also see page from searching for
microsoft media creation tool
- to get the local page for you. (My page result is GB).

5. You could use a boot disk e.g. Kyhi's available from the top of the Software and Apps section here if you wished.
Or you could boot to a command prompt and work from there, booting from your new Win 10 installation disk.

Flogger23m · 27 Jan 2018

Thanks for the response.

dalchina said:

5. You could use a boot disk e.g. Kyhi's available from the top of the Software and Apps section here if you wished.
Or you could boot to a command prompt and work from there, booting from your new Win 10 installation disk.

I am looking into Kyhi's application. However, would this be a safe methodology to safely remove all data from the drive:

- Do a full re-install of Win 10 via bootable media. I am hoping this will overwrite all of the old OS data. All of the other non-OS data will be deleted.

- Load Crap Cleaner and run the Drive Wiper and wipe "Free Space Only" as shown here:
https://images.techhive.com/images/a...79711-orig.jpg

That should wipe all of the non-OS data that was deleted.

Do you think that will be sufficient to fully and permanently clean all data off the drive? Or is it still recommended to fully wipe the entire drive prior to re-installing Win 10?

dalchina · 27 Jan 2018

It depends how forensically detailed you wish to be, and how critical any of your data might be. If you think there is very sensitive information which someone might be determined enough to use sophisticated techniques to recover, then you would want to overwrite the whole disk multiple times.

If you are less concerned and do not think someone would think it worth their while to use forensic techniques to (partially) recover data overwritten by a new OS installation, then what you suggest would be fine.