How to: Selling HP DV7, want to erase/destruct hard drive & restore to Factory

[janjun]

I plan to sell my HP Pavilion Dv7 laptop. I am concerned about personal data, passwords, etc. I know how to RESTORE the laptop to factory settings. But i here this is not enough to protect data previously written. So, how do I perform an erasure/destruction of the hard drive without destroying the partition for factory restoration (i.e. Windows and all the other software it originally came with)?

I understand that nothing short of shooting bullets into a hard drive will truly keep ALL your data safe from someone with experience who really wants to get it AND I also understand that the odds of a buyer being a malevolent hacker genius is also slim, but better safe than sorry .

What steps do I have to take to do this properly. Please be specific because I am definitely not as savvy as many of the members in this forum.

Thank you.

 

[johnb35]

Did you make recovery cd's? Most laptops allow you to make one copy of recovery cd's. Make the recovery cd's or call HP to see if they can send them to you. Then killdisk the drive and then use the cd's to reinstall the OS.

 

[voyagerfan99]

Is there really anything of extreme sensitivity on your laptop? If not, then just do the factory restore.

 

[Dngrsone]

There are many data shredder programs available for download; find one that does a DoD level wipe (at least seven passes, random writes, etc), use it to erase teh entire drive, then perform a restore.