How To Wipe Everything But Windows 10

I'm about to requite away my motorcar, simply I want to leave Windows installed. How can I securely delete everything except the operating system?

You can't.

Not really, not completely, and definitely non deeply.

I'll depict a few steps that will delete a lot — perhaps enough for your concerns — only it really depends on how paranoid you lot are about the various traces that will nevertheless be left on a automobile yous've been using a while.

Deleting everything? There's only one way to do that.

TL;DR:

While you can't securely delete everything, you tin can become shut.

Delete and uninstall information and programs.
Remove users.
Run a disk cleaning utility.
Delete some organization files.
Wipe costless space.

Alternately: erase everything, including Windows.

Delete and uninstall equally much equally you can

The process starts past deleting your data files and uninstalling all the programs you've used or added and don't want to exist part of the machine when it's reused by someone else.

For your data files, that means deleting things from My Documents and wherever else you kept data files.

A good start for programs is to take a walk through Add/Remove Programs, or Programs and Features in Control Panel, or the Settings App, and just start uninstalling.

Delete Key For extra security, you might want to employ Revo Uninstaller instead. Revo not only lists more things, simply it uninstalls more thoroughly. Information technology uses a couple of levels of "aggressiveness" to determine what to remove, and this is one instance where information technology makes sense to be as thorough equally possible.

Remove all users simply one

If your auto has more than one user account, remove all except for a single account that has ambassador privileges. This should delete a plethora of files and settings associated with each account.

Make clean crud

Run the built-in Disk Cleanup Utility, or, ameliorate nonetheless, grab a copy of CCleaner (a gratis download — you do non demand to buy support), and use it to clean up as much equally it can.

The goal here is to remove traces from browser caches, temporary files, and a host of other things — many of which might exist benign, but many others that may inadvertently contain things yous'd rather non share with your auto's subsequent owner.

Consider running a registry browse. I'chiliad non a big fan of registry cleaners, only this is a case where they might remove boosted information you don't desire left behind, and the cost of failure (an unbootable motorcar) is relatively depression. You may desire to accept an paradigm backup prior to the cleaning, in case you want to be able to recover from that worst-case scenario.

Turn off some system files

Prepare your virtual memory to aught and delete the paging files. Turn off Hibernation and remove the hibernation file.

These are hidden files in the root of your system drive, typically C:\.

Plough off System Restore.

All of these files could contain individual information, and could be turned back on by the machine'south new owner should they and so desire.

Securely erase the empty space

Using a tool similar CCleaner'south "Drive Wiper", securely erase unused space on your hard deejay.

Merely deleting files doesn't overwrite the data, so it could notwithstanding be recovered. Tools similar Drive Wiper actually overwrite all of the unused space on your difficult drive with random data to completely remove all traces of what had been stored in that location before.

That'south about as skillful as you can get using this approach.

What still might be missed

The problem with this approach is that you lot don't know what you might accept missed.

Even after all the deleting and cleaning to a higher place, in that location might exist system files left that betoken something about who y'all are or what you lot used the machine for. For case, registry settings could remain that contain settings for programs (perhaps even programs no longer installed).

You just don't know.

That's why this is not an arroyo I recommend.

Nuke it instead

Using a tool like DBAN erases the hard drive completely. It's easy, and every unmarried scrap of every single byte — operating organisation, settings, programs, and data — is removed from the hard drive…

… including all your personal information.

And so, if you like (and if you can), reinstall the operating system from an install disk.

If yous don't accept one, perhaps grab a free re-create of a Linux distribution and install that instead.

But erasing the hard disk completely is the simply way to be absolutely sure y'all haven't left personal information on the automobile prior to handing it off to someone else.

If you lot institute this article helpful you'll love Confident Calculating! My weekly electronic mail newsletter is full of articles that help you solve bug, stay safe (including what needs erasing, and when), and increase your confidence with engineering.

Subscribe now, and I'll come across you there presently,

Leo