Is Windows 10 built in drive wipe good enough?

[Mechanics55]

I plan on selling my laptop to upgrade to a Macbook Pro for school. It has windows 10 installed. Is windows 10 built in drive wipe good enough? I don't have anything super confidential and I have used it to wipe my PC a few times, but I don't really want anyone recovering any data on it. It has a 1TB HDD (not a SSD). Thanks for any info.

 

[anti-duck]

I would just use CCleaner's drive wiper and do at least 3 passes. it'll take a while though depending on the size of your drive.

 

[SchizTech]

There are different options in the Windows Reset utility. It may ask you to "just delete my files" or "fully clean the drive," where the latter option will do a thorough format operation that takes a couple of hours to finish.

If you want a really thorough wiping download the DBAN (Darik's Boot and Nuke) tool and burn it to a disk. When you boot from that disk you'll have options to very securely zero out the drive. Then you can use an install DVD or flash drive to re-install 10 (that can be downloaded from

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/home

 

[Mechanics55]

There are different options in the Windows Reset utility. It may ask you to "just delete my files" or "fully clean the drive," where the latter option will do a thorough format operation that takes a couple of hours to finish.

If you want a really thorough wiping download the DBAN (Darik's Boot and Nuke) tool and burn it to a disk. When you boot from that disk you'll have options to very securely zero out the drive. Then you can use an install DVD or flash drive to re-install 10 (that can be downloaded from

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/home

The activation information would be saved on the motherboard of the laptop I assume? Meaning it will be activated without me having to purchase an activation key?

 

[wpgwpg]

Windows 10 activation is stored on Microsoft servers, based on unique info in your hardware. That means that once Windows 10 has been activated on a given computer, reinstalling will automatically get activated. That's what Microsoft says, but if it were me, I'd be SURE I made a full system backup first.

Good luck.