Question I have an old PC I want to wipe

[danny la rouge]

An old desktop. Surplus to requirements and out of date. But still working. I’m going to donate it to Remade in Govanhill (who recycle and reuse stuff). But I want to wipe it.

Now, in the olden days I’d have been happy to get on with this. But now that everything syncs together I want to be sure I’m only deleting from the PC and not from other devices that Microsoft know I use and that I share files between. I’ve come a cropper that way before. (There’s stuff I need to stay on my cloud account so that I can still access it).

So, what steps do I need to take?

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Degauss it? Assuming it has a mechanical HDD.

Otherwise I guess you'd have to disassociate it from any linked cloud services so deletion from the device doesn't affect remote copies of the data. You should be able to revoke permissions to access cloud accounts from things like the microsoft account login.

 

[Pickman's model]

An old desktop. Surplus to requirements and out of date. But still working. I’m going to donate it to Remade in Govanhill (who recycle and reuse stuff). But I want to wipe it.

Now, in the olden days I’d have been happy to get on with this. But now that everything syncs together I want to be sure I’m only deleting from the PC and not from other devices that Microsoft know I use and that I share files between. I’ve come a cropper that way before. (There’s stuff I need to stay on my cloud account so that I can still access it).

So, what steps do I need to take?

windows 10 and 8.1 How to Securely Wipe a Hard Drive | Crucial.com

 

[danny la rouge]

Degauss it? Assuming it has a mechanical HDD.

Otherwise I guess you'd have to disassociate it from any linked cloud services so deletion from the device doesn't affect remote copies of the data.

Well, I don’t want to destroy the hard drive. But yeah, I’m basically asking how I make sure I’m not linked to the cloud when I wipe.

 

[Pickman's model]

Well, I don’t want to destroy the hard drive. But yeah, I’m basically asking how I make sure I’m not linked to the cloud when I wipe.

if you follow the instructions in my link (assuming you're using windows 10 or 8.1) it should be easy. formatting the hard drive ought not have any effect on things not on the hard drive.

 

[Throbbing Angel]

Disconnect from net

Use DBAN to wipe the drive

 

[danny la rouge]

windows 10 and 8.1 How to Securely Wipe a Hard Drive | Crucial.com

Thanks. Yeah, I can do that. I just need reassurance that doing that won’t wipe OneDrive too.

 

[Raheem]

Well, I don’t want to destroy the hard drive. But yeah, I’m basically asking how I make sure I’m not linked to the cloud when I wipe.

Would turning off the WiFi not be enough?

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Well, I don’t want to destroy the hard drive. But yeah, I’m basically asking how I make sure I’m not linked to the cloud when I wipe.

It shouldn't take too long to remove cloud access from the device itself - just a tedious job of faffing around in the various settings. I've only got two I think - microsoft and dropbox. But presumably completely wiping the HDD would do the same job - there'd be nothing left on it that told the machine that it's linked to your cloud accounts.

 

[danny la rouge]

Would turning off the WiFi not be enough?

Might be. Good point.

 

[Pickman's model]

Thanks. Yeah, I can do that. I just need reassurance that doing that won’t wipe OneDrive too.

it should be exactly the same as wiping a usb stick by formatting it. but if you disconnect the computer first from the internet as Throbbing Angel suggests then you should have peace of mind as a non-connected computer can't delete anything on the cloud.

 

[Supine]

Wouldn’t formatting the drive break all links to the cloud?

 

[danny la rouge]

Wouldn’t formatting the drive break all links to the cloud?

I don’t know.

 

[teuchter]

Just make sure it's not connected to the internet (by ethernet or by wifi) before wiping it, and the cloud need never know.