Clear all personal information

[jamie1]

I am giving my media centre pc to a friend. Wish to clear it of all persoanl information - files, emails, itunes etc.

How is it best to carry this out?

[Vidya]

I would recommend you restore the system to factory settings which will cleanup your complete personal data and gives a new unit experience to your friend.

Here is the link to the procedure to do so:

http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/bph07145

[JennTech]

You would need to perform a recovery. This will bring your computer back to factory conditions.

You can either do this from recovery discs or from your f11 recovery partition.

From Partition:

1. Turn off computer and diconnect all devices except monitor mouse and keyboard
2. Locate your F11 key, as soon as you tap your power button to turn on your computer, repeaditly tap the f11 about once every second until you see windows loading files
3. Once at this screen if you have a windows 7 system you should see three boxes. In the first "i need help immeaditly" select "system recovery"
4. Then Start
5. The Recovery manager should walk you through the rest just make sure you select "recover without backing up files"
6. Once it starts normally takes 45min-1.5 hours. Sometimes longer, just leave unit alone and let it run.
7. The system will restart on its own, this is normal.

Hope this helps any other questions just reply or send me a message and i will get back to you asap.

[jamie1]

Thank you again for your response.

I have been unable to attend to this until now. 

It has occurred to me that the hard drive crashed some 4/5 years ago and a new one was installed.

I used the recovery discs I created soon after purchasing the PC. I just wanted to check if it is still okay to proceed with a destructive Recovery?

Many thanks

Matt Reid

[Vidya]

Yes Matt. You can still perform Destructive Recovery to restore the system to factory settings and delete your personal data.

[jamie1]

Thank you for your prompt response. I shall now proceed with a destructive Recovery.

Regards

Matt