Need to completely reset laptop I'm giving to a friend..

..and I need to make sure all my stuff is off the computer as I have bank accounts, etc. and have to make sure I do this right.

I tried to find a tutorial here but probably putting in the wrong phrases or words to search.

Can someone help me with this?

Thanks so much :)

Laptops usually come with some kind of factory reset process. Do a google search for your laptop's model number, with the keywords "Factory Reset". If it does not come with one, you will have to download the latest version of Windows 10 and make A usb installer. Here is instructions on how to do that: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...f-40c3b507420d

That should be enough to wipe out whats on the drive, however, someone with some skill could recover data in the portions of the drive that contain free space. Usually that is not a problem with an average user that has personal information like bank info as people that steal information of that kind usually stick to drives that are easy to extract data from, drives that haven't been over written with data. However if you are really concerned about that, you can use a tool to erase the data from the drive by writing over the drive with a special algorithm. But then that will blow out the factory reset ability and you would need to reinstall windows 10 from usb if you wanted it functioning after you wipe the data. I use killdisk myself, I think they still have a free version, but its limited to only writing zeros to the disk, but In my experience that should be enough for an average user (not someone targeted like a political dissenter.)

Goldengirl52 said:

..and I need to make sure all my stuff is off the computer as I have bank accounts, etc. and have to make sure I do this right.

I tried to find a tutorial here but probably putting in the wrong phrases or words to search.

Can someone help me with this?

Thanks so much :)

trinsic said:

Laptops usually come with some kind of factory reset process. Do a google search for your laptop's model number, with the keywords "Factory Reset". If it does not come with one, you will have to download the latest version of Windows 10 and make A usb installer. Here is instructions on how to do that: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...f-40c3b507420d

That should be enough to wipe out whats on the drive, however, someone with some skill could recover data in the portions of the drive that contain free space. Usually that is not a problem with an average user that has personal information like bank info as people that steal information of that kind usually stick to drives that are easy to extract data from, drives that haven't been over written with data. However if you are really concerned about that, you can use a tool to erase the data from the drive by writing over the drive with a special algorithm. But then that will blow out the factory reset ability and you would need to reinstall windows 10 from usb if you wanted it functioning after you wipe the data. I use killdisk myself, I think they still have a free version, but its limited to only writing zeros to the disk, but In my experience that should be enough for an average user (not someone targeted like a political dissenter.)

Ok, this is a beginner pretty much. She is older like me, 68, and I think the easier method will be fine. I can look up the info on my laptop, and follow it, so thank you so much I just wanted to check with someone that is up on this much more than I am Really appreciate your help :)

You might want to check this tutorial out:
Reset Windows 10

NavyLCDR said:

You might want to check this tutorial out:
Reset Windows 10

thanks Navy, this looks good, and it's the one I've followed in the past at some point I do like the idea of following this forums tutorials. I hadn't started anything yet so thank you for the link :)

I can't attest to other vendors, but with HP, the Factory Reset only does a Reformat of the drive -- essentially leaving the files still out there for any decent data recovery app to restore. The only SAFE option with those is to use special software to WIPE the drive. This actually overwrites the files and prevents them from being recovered.

What are some names for that type of software Mark? I would like to have that around even though the gal decided to buy a new laptop, or PC

It's been my experience with HP that the recovery tool offers some form of data erasing. There's usually two options: back up your data and factory restore windows or erase and factory restore. But for the most part I just end up using the windows 10 installation media to do a clean installation which is pretty good at wiping the data that's already there if you select erase all data..

the main thing I want to be sure as I can be no one can find my banking info etc.

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