There are some common steps that should always be done before selling your computer, donating it, or even giving it to a friend to use. When data is deleted from your disk, the data still remains on the disk and can be "recovered" easily by one of the many software programs found on the internet. Even formatting your pc will not make it 100% safe. You may have forgot about tax software you used years ago, documents that could contain personal information, or even a video or picture that you may not want others to have access too. Some of these files you may deleted long ago, but that does not mean they cannot be recovered rather easily or even stumbled upon accidently. The follow steps will help you clean your hard drive and wipe the disk so data cannot be recovered. Assuming you are selling your pc on Ebay or to a friend, first off you need to find and remove any files that are not necessary and delete them. Go through the add-remove section of your control panel and uninstall any programs that are not needed. For example if you have tax software there, uninstall it. After you have uninstall everything, go through your program files folder and delete the ENTIRE folder for programs that were installed there in the past, and are not needed. You will see alot of folders listed under c:\program files\*, even programs you uninstall may leave stuff behind here, so delete any folders like tax software, etc. Now, scan your hard drive looking for videos, pictures, sound files, or documents. I would use a disk cleaner program as it will search and list every video, picture, etc., found on your pc, so nothing will be forgotten. After you have deleted all leftover files on your computer, be SURE to empty your recycle bin. Next, run a free disk wiper program like No File Recovery. It is a free program that will make deleted files unrecoverable. Once this has completed, run your disk defrag (which is already on your pc). This should now make your pc very difficult to recover any data from, just make sure you have really found and removed everything that has been placed on your hard drive over the years, that search is important. If you really want to go the extra mile, and you have all your old Windows installation CDs, you can reboot your pc first and then format your hard drive. This would make it extremely difficult for that average person to ever get any data back after you have done all these steps. Assuming you are not being chased by the FBI, you should now feel good about selling or donating your computer.

One other thing you do not want to forget about, be sure when cleaning up your old disk files, that you also go through all your bookmarks and delete them, and also clear all cookies and cache files so there are not any passwords remaining on your computer! For example, you should uninstall and remove any ISP software or browser software like Firefox, Netscape, AOL, and others that may contain information about you stored. No reason to leave these things behind as the recipient can always reinstall it themselves.

This site provides a list of interesting subjects, tips, and tricks. Although it is mostly computer tips, there are also tips and tricks related to various other helpful topics besides just computers. If you have an important tip that you think should be listed, feel free to post it below. Although I still take tips via email, I often scan and review posts on the page below and prefer that method.