If you're ready to replace your old PC and hand it down to a friend or family member, you'll need to wipe your data and reset it. Follow these instructions to make sure you do it the right way.

Most people assume that deleting files and emptying the Recycle Bin permanently removes them—but that’s not true. Those “deleted” files still sit on your drive and can be restored with recovery tools.

When a computer gets old or when you are handing it over, you must delete everything on the computer. As a matter of fact, it is important that you also securely wipe the computer so the files are not ...

The Windows tool Diskpart overwrites all data on the hard drive with a zero, which is considered a secure deletion method. This applies at least to classic hard drives, i.e. HDDs with magnetic discs.

We went through a couple years ago and replaced all our spinning drives with SATA SSDs to try and get a couple more years out of our older devices. As those have been replaced with new computers, ...