[Chelsea Dott]

i am selling my laptop and need to remove all that data on it and im not sure how to do that

[rshaffer61]

Try this method.

Quote

HP:

Press the power button to start the HP. Press and hold the F11 key to launch the HP Recovery Manager from the recovery partition.

This should return the laptop to factory settings.

[Chelsea Dott]

i held it downa and it keeps beeping is this normal?

[Chelsea Dott]

i have done it and it is saying that if i restore to factory settings my documents will not be affected and thats what needs to be removed

[Chelsea Dott]

should i click continue or cancel?

[rshaffer61]

Continue and it should actually format the drive to return it to factory settings.

[Chelsea Dott]

it says my documents have not been affected? what should i do?

[rshaffer61]

Is it giving you a choice of what type of restore to do?
Sometimes it will offer Non Destructive or Factory restore. Non destructive will do actually what you are describing.

[Chelsea Dott]

well it gave me a choce of programmes to restore so i just clicked the first one and nothing seems to ave happened

[Chelsea Dott]

i want it to remove my documents so how do i do that?

[rshaffer61]

Can you post the choices it gives and I will see if the correct one is listed.

[Chelsea Dott]

ok so if i click advanced options i have a choice of: computer check up,microsoft system restore, file backup programme and finally system recovery.

[rshaffer61]

OK so if you click system recovery what options does it give then? In fact lets see if you even have the recovery partition on the laptop by doing the following.

Go to Start then to Run
Type in compmgmt.msc and click Enter
On left side click on Disk Management
On right side you will see you hard drive.
Now I need you to take a screenshot and attach it to your next reply. Do the following to take a screenshot while the above is open and showing on your desktop.

To do a screenshot please have click on your Print Screen on your keyboard. It is normally the key above your number pad between the F12 key and the Scroll Lock key
Now go to Start and then to All Programs
Scroll to Accessories and then click on Paint
In the Empty White Area click and hold the CTRL key and then click the V
Go to the File option at the top and click on Save as
Save as file type JPEG and save it to your Desktop


Attach it to your next reply

[Chelsea Dott]

i have clicked system restore and it said that if i dont back my files up they will be deleted and that is what i want so as far as i can tell its working.
thank you so much you have been very helpful as i was getting very stressed

[rshaffer61]

Yep that is what I was hoping for. It will get rid of everything and put the system back to how it was brand new.
FYI: You will need to do all the updates for the OS and Drivers to make sure everything is up to date.

Please let me know when it is done if everything is working correctly and all your data has been erased as you wanted.