Wiping PC with pirated copy of Win7

[joe1712]

Apologies firstly if this is in the wrong category.

I have a desktop PC thats about 4 years old that i used for gaming back in my uni days. It has a cracked version of Win7 Enterprise.

Now i have no use for it, my boss wants to buy it off me for the office. I want to completely wipe it clean so he can start from scratch with a genuine Windows 10 or 7 Pro OS.

I have no files or software on there that i want to keep.

Can i literally just buy a genuine Win 10 Pro disc, boot the comp from the disc and that will wipe everything automatically?

Any help would be great!

Thanks,

 

[DonkeyOatie]

I would completely reformat the HDD and start with a fresh install. Safer that way.

 

[envy14tpe]

Check out the program dban: http://www.dban.org/

If you are selling HDD or SSD and want to totally and safely erase it then you gotta go beyond reformatting and use dban. It is safe and easy to use.

 

[joe1712]

Check out the program dban: http://www.dban.org/

If you are selling HDD or SSD and want to totally and safely erase it then you gotta go beyond reformatting and use dban. It is safe and easy to use.

Thanks for your speedy reply. There is honestly nothing on the PC or HDD that i would be concerned about getting out. Sorry for askign stupid questions, but reformatting the HDD will remove the current OS?

 

[DonkeyOatie]

A reformat will remove the existing OS, a complete reformat will remove the existing OS and actively write on the entire disk to eliminate any previous data.

 

[joe1712]

A reformat will remove the existing OS, a complete reformat will remove the existing OS and actively write on the entire disk to eliminate any previous data.

Thank you for this. How would i go about doing the second option? I.e how would i completely reformat the PC and remove all data?

Sorry, i'm a mac user, and im not too familiar with PC's.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

The dban suggested above is an easy way. I have plenty of computers lying around so it is easy for me to do it 'by hand'.

I'm old enough that complete reformat mean smert dannyye

 

[giantbucket]

just install Win10 or Win7 and it'll naturally start writing its own crap all over the disk, in the process killing whatever else was there.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

Since it is a cracked copy, I would want to be sure nothing survived if I were going to sell the computer to someone out. I would want it 'sterilized'.

 

[4Ryan6]

Seeing as how it is your boss and a pirated copy, if it was me I'd want the drive wiped of all evidence of wrong doing, you can always download a diagnostic disk of the HDD brand, which usually has drive wipe capability on the diagnostic disk, otherwise I've always used Killdisk to write zeros to the drive, as Killdisk will wipe any drive no matter the brand.

The Killdisk program has a CD creator that will write the program to a CD and make it bootable.

 

[USAFRet]

As mentioned above, DBAN or KillDisk first, then install an OS.

 

[giantbucket]

or, you know... just use a different hard drive.

 

[tdogthecoolone]

You can format the disk during the windows install by choosing advanced option when asked