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I am giving away my old Windows laptop.
What's the best way to remove all my data and programs, without having to reinstall Windows? Every guide I found required wiping the hard drive.
Is there a program or command that removes everything but the OS?
TYJJFL
Posted 2019-11-07T13:53:34.727
Reputation: 1
See if you have a recovery partition (common), activate fresh recovery and blow everything away. That will do it for you – John – 2019-11-07T14:01:34.793
Actually it will not, your suggestion does not guarantee sensitive data will be overwritten. – Moab – 2019-11-07T14:04:10.803
Depends if it's a Windows recovery or vendor recovery. Some vendor ones do wipe everything and reimage the partition with an empty Windows. – Nick – 2019-11-07T14:07:17.387
That is what the member here wants - Windows only. – John – 2019-11-07T14:15:00.947
Performing a Reset, and choosing to keep nothing, would remove the personal information. However, if you are worried about malicious data recovery from the new owner, I suggest you (enable BitLocker protection, then perform a reset, then disable BitLocker protection which will then require another reset.) . – Ramhound – 2019-11-07T14:17:23.300
Depends is not a solution to the problem, never seen a factory restore erase the drive before restoring the factory image. John is on the right track with one exception, you need to erase the free space after a factory restore>>>https://superuser.com/a/168606/40928
– Moab – 2019-11-07T14:21:15.000