Tips for The Average Joe
When people are upgrading their computer, they tend to sell or otherwise donate it. From the proceeds of the sale, you will make money that will assist you when you are upgrading. Many cases have been reported of the people whose data have been accessed by the unintended person after selling. The following are some of way to prepare your computer for sale.
Before you embark on selling your computer; it is vital to first back up the information on the machine. Copy and paste to the external drive- the method is suitable when you are only storing few GB. However, the copy-pasting way is not ideal when you are dealing with a massive amount of data. To make the process faster, you should clone the partition that contains the vital data. Visit the web, and you will see many cloning programs that will significantly help you. All the passwords that you have saved on the browsers will also be backup by the cloning software.
In the next step, you are supposed to erase everything from your computer. just deleting and emptying the recycle bin will not completely remove all the data. A lot of information is stored on the hard disk and which may not be visible on the OS. If the computer lands on the wrong hands, they can access your data. Many recovery software is available free on the web. Some computer professional can access the information even without using a software.
Data wiping in a computer can be done using various ways. A lot of OS has an inbuilt data wiping programs. To wipe your computer, go to the setting, and click on the resenting option. You can also do the resetting when you are reinstalling the operating system. The data wiping software available on the market are more effective than the one provided by the operating system. White Canyon, for instance, uses DOD 5220.22-m method to wipe the data. DOD 5220.22-m works by overwriting “0” and”1″ on various positions of the drive at a random manner. The program will then do the verification to make sure that the initial information is unreadable.
Once you have wiped all the data, it is vital to clean it. Before you clean it, ensure that you have removed the battery. Use a soft and linen free cloth to wipe it. If water is not removing the dust, mix vinegar and water. A hair drier will also be necessary to remove any dust on the machine.
Make sure that you have ejected all the DVDs and other removable media from your computer. Many people tend to leave disks on their PC for quite sometimes. Remove also the thumb USB since they are very small.