How do I "scrub" an old computer with Widows XP?

[IamSam]

@UT - Thanks for the tip! I forget about e-bay since I seldom visit it. I'll check it out.

Originally Posted by Beest

does it have a backup partition?

Last few computers I have bought, dell and HP, even a laptop old enough to have XP, have had a partition on the drive with the reinstallation stuff on it, you just have to go somewhere in control panel, possibly 'recovery' and it will wipe and set up like new.

If you look in 'My Computer' there would be a D drive which may be labelled recovery, about 10 - 20 GB.

So, if it does have a backup, will the program walk me through doing it? Or do I copy the reinstallation program from the D drive onto a disc and then go ahead and reformat the C drive?

[Beest]

Originally Posted by IamSam

@UT - Thanks for the tip! I forget about e-bay since I seldom visit it. I'll check it out.





So, if it does have a backup, will the program walk me through doing it? Or do I copy the reinstallation program from the D drive onto a disc and then go ahead and reformat the C drive?

you just say go and it does it, no copying to disc or anything. Since it's a seprate partition, it can reformat the other partition and reinstall windows from scratch.

[tw]

Originally Posted by IamSam

So, if it does have a backup, will the program walk me through doing it? Or do I copy the reinstallation program from the D drive onto a disc and then go ahead and reformat the C drive?

You will learn how complex the restoration can be. And that many programs provided on that computer (ie Word, DVD burner, malware software, etc) are no longer available without provided CD-Roms.

I do a much simpler cleaning. First establish (from Control Panel>Users) a new administrator account with your name. Then, using any administrator's account, open Windows Explorer. Find these directories: My Computer> C:\Documents and Settings\ your friend's name. Listed will be many directories where all her data will be in 'her name's Documents. This assuming she was using the computer as intended.

All those directories in your friend's name Documents get stored to a CD (if she wants to save the data) or gets deleted.

Repeat that for any other account she might have been using.

Next, go to Control Panel>Users. Delete her user directory.

Go to Start>Accessories>System Tools. Execute the Disk Cleaner. And then the Disk Defragmenter.

That should destroy all of her data. Not destroy programs. And not create other problems nobody has yet discussed such as utility partitions.