hello and welcome to tech deals how to
guide how to safely prepare your
computer for sale or donation so that
when your computer goes away your files
and personal information don't go with
it
this isn't something that a lot of
people think about very often after all
how often do you donate or sell a
computer perhaps you've sold your
computer online or locally via
Craigslist or you have a friend or
family member at either work or home or
maybe in the next state that you're
giving your computer to that's wonderful
except you want to make sure that when
they get the computer it becomes theirs
and not stays yours there's a couple of
things to think about when it's time for
your computer to leave one thing you
don't want to do is just go into file
explorer and either delete or copy your
files to another computer uninstall a
couple of applications and go well my
program icons aren't on the desktop
everything's great right nope stop don't
do that Windows stores a lot of your
personal information in the Windows
registry and in your user folders in the
computer that are not readily accessible
you can get to them but that's a very
advanced function for example your
programs that may be registered to you
or you've activated online uninstalling
them does not necessarily remove your
name or your activation codes from
windows they're stored in the Windows
registry and the reason for that is so
that if you ever redownload them or
reinstall them you don't have to
activate them again it remembers who you
are except what happens when you're
giving your computer to somebody else
that information is still there how do
you remove it in theory you could go
through the registry and go through
every hidden folder on the hard drive
and try to find everything but odds are
you'd miss things furthermore deleting
files in windows deleting files deletes
the pointer to the file it does not
overwrite the file on your hard drive
the files are still there it's not until
the drive is wiped out by having zeros
written across the entire drive that
your data is actually destroyed so just
going into windows explorer deleting
files and going into control panel and
uninstall
your programs is not good enough however
thankfully Microsoft has provided us
with an easy-to-use solution that does
not require that you go fumbling about
for an installation DVD or create USB
thumb drives or try to figure out what
to do what's the solution System Restore
I'm going to show you in a couple of
easy steps how you can reset your
machine to light new configuration and
wipe all of your information off the
drive so it's safe for you to give away
or donate or sell your computer the
first thing you need to do is make sure
your data is secure do you have all of
your personal data you want to keep off
your computer preferably you have a
backup but you've gotten all your
information off your computer because
what I'm about to show you will destroy
all personal information on this
computer so don't do this until your
data is safe you want to go down to
start and you want to come up to
settings once you open up the settings
window you want to come to the far right
of the screen on the bottom row to
update and security in update and
security you want to come down for to
the recovery tab there are two items in
a recovery tab the top one is the one
you care about reset this PC now if you
actually read it it says if your PC
isn't running well resetting it might
help this lets you choose to keep your
files or remove them and then reinstall
windows Microsoft leaves an encrypted
protected original installation set of
files on your hard drive so that it can
wipe your drive and then reinstall
windows from scratch and it'll be just
like your machine was brand new you have
the option to keep your personal files
in your documents folders and video
folders caution if you're keeping your
computer and doing this because it's not
running well make sure you have a backup
it's not guaranteed to keep every file
it might delete something you wanted to
keep furthermore there's two options hit
get started keep my files remove
everything I'll mention that in a second
keep my files remove everything keep my
files as if your keep
your machine we're not we want to wipe
everything off this machine so choose
remove everything this deletes your
programs this deletes your personal
information program registration
information everything it makes it like
a brand new computer and now there are
two options and this is very important
the second option zeros the drive and
make sure that everything is completely
obliterated the top option is much
quicker but all it does is delete the
pointers to files somebody who really
wanted to recover information could the
bottom option will take hours however it
will actually have the drive write zeros
across the entire drive and obliterate
all your personal information so it's
completely unrecoverable just keep in
mind that if you've got a one two three
four terabyte hard drive this will take
several hours so do this when you have
time to just let the Machine run
uninterrupted because you will not be
able to use it while it's running I'm
going to click remove files and clean
the drive warning
resetting will remove all the personal
files and user accounts on this PC any
apps and programs that did not come with
this PC and any changes made to settings
this will take a while and your PC will
restart here's the beauty of it once we
click reset and once it goes to the
process the computer will end up
rebooting and the very first screen that
will come up is the setup windows screen
and the machine will be like it was
brand new out of the box had never been
touched and that's pretty cool
so if you are donating or selling your
computer deleting your files and
uninstalling some programs are not
enough make sure that you reset your PC
remove everything and wipe the drive
this will keep your information insecure
and the good thing about this is when
the new person sets the machine up they
can set it up for them it'll come up and
ask for timezone and user account and
it'll ask
or personal privacy settings it lets
them set up the machine as if it was a
new computer that is a much better
choice than having them turn it on and
see your name in the user account so I'm
going to go ahead and click reset
because I am actually going to wipe this
machine now and it's working on it
I'll show you the start of it it's
thinking about it I should have hit that
and then set everything and there we go
resetting that actually took longer than
I'm used to but fair enough um so I will
have trimmed some of that out that took
over a minute from when I click the
reset button so if you click reset and
it appears to not be doing anything give
it a minute or two um if you're on a
hard drive it may take some time and so
now it's going to be restarting the
machine and I will wait long enough for
it to start the first section before we
end this because this is going to take
probably three hours so no I'm not going
to film the whole thing that would be
silly and now we're resetting the PC the
system is rebooted and if you look at
the bottom of the screen it will see we
say resetting this PC because I chose to
wipe the drive this is going to probably
take three or four hours
I'm not going to film this even to trim
it it would simply be way too long at
this point what I'll tell you is there's
nothing further for you to do leave the
machine go have dinner go to something
else it's going to sit here and wipe it
but when it's finished with the final
reboot it will come up to the very first
screen of Windows 10 that says please
choose your language please to choose
your timezone that will ask for user
accounts that will be a brand new
computer and all of your files will be
safely removed and it's once it comes up
to that screen normally you're not
supposed to force power off your machine
but when it does come up to the screen
saying choose your language choose your
timezone hold the power button down for
four seconds and force turn it off
unplug it you're done do make sure to
remove anything from the DVD Drive
remove your wireless keyboard or mouse
adapter if you have one
blow the dust out of the machine get it
ready for the new owner it's now safe
and completely wiped of all your
information and they have basically a
brand new machine they'll turn it on and
they'll thank you they got sent a brand
new computer you can't beat that deal
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