selling laptop..clear the memory?

[Hero 0f Time]

I am selling my laptop and was wondering if there was an easy way to erase all of my information that would be on the computer?

[buckslayer80]

If you have a Windows cd then just reformat it. If not, there are software programs out there that will allow you to erase the information.

[brasilstu]

Yeah, Boot n Nuke

http://dban.sourceforge.net/

you burn it to a CD or copy it to a USB drive, reboot the machine and it wipes the hard disk *very* *VERY* thoroughly.

You can also leave the CD in friends and colleagues computers for [censored] and giggles.

^ joke

[SamIAm]

I smell a new FAQ entry in the near future. We've been getting lots of these type questions.
-Sam

[goldtoes]

I like the freeware prog Eraser. It goes by the DoD specs for overwriting data on hard drives.

[ispiked]

Just a warning: depending on the size of your drives, this can take a long time. A few weekends ago I used dban on my family computer's 40GB and 80GB drives and it took around five hours to "cleanse" both of htem.