Erase all data from Samsung laptop

Question

I am selling my old Samsung laptop which I got in 2009, and I would like to erase all data. When I press F4 and go to Samsung Recovery and choose the restore, it restores my computer to the same state as it was after the information given during the first startup: my very first user account is there (my name, my original password).

I can't find a way to reset my laptop to the factory settings or even remove those restore points in Samsung Recovery. Am I missing something here?

Answer 1

Well, one way is Darik's Boot and Nuke (DBAN). It's my personal favorite, if simply for the name.

Another option is to download any old Linux liveCD. Then just use dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1M, where /dev/sda is the hard drive, which you can find by doing fdisk -l. It's much, much faster and just as secure (unless people will use a SE microscope on your disk). This is the option I'd actually use, because DBAN takes so long.

Answer 2

There is an reserved space on most laptop hard drives for backup and recovery that it's capacity almost just 100 MB. you need Erase it while you are wiping your hard Drive. anyway I think you need first install a powerful and safe software to wipe out all your data like O&O SafeErase. now just don't forget that erase reserved space too by this tool.

Answer 3

"kill disk" is a free program. Download it, or make a Hirens boot CD and run the program "kill disk".

This will overwrite your hard disk with zeroes. The pro version of "killdisk" can overwrite it 35 times. Now even the FBI won't find anything.