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Post by Mick Themungrel on Sept 5, 2019 20:45:07 GMT 10
My laptop is off lease. I tried to do a reset to remove any of my info. It goes through the procedure for a couple of minutes, then comes up that the reset failed. Any suggestions?
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Post by Old Techo on Sept 5, 2019 21:07:51 GMT 10
Not following you Mick 
Any typos there?
Trying to reset what?
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Post by Mick Themungrel on Sept 5, 2019 21:14:12 GMT 10
The computer. I want to remove all the programs and files that I have added.  |
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Post by GerryP on Sept 5, 2019 22:02:50 GMT 10
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Post by A'van on Sept 5, 2019 22:58:50 GMT 10
Change the hard drive, even if you think you got all the info of someone can still access it  The police and probably others as well.
I'm no expert but that's what i have heard.
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Post by Mick Themungrel on Sept 6, 2019 3:16:23 GMT 10
I will try with the anti virus turned off, thanks Gerry
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Post by Old Techo on Sept 6, 2019 7:41:43 GMT 10
Morning Mick,
It was only after I hit the sack that I realised you wanted to do a factory default reset.
I’ve never had much faith in Windows OS self-management other than where the OS resides in a hidden partition and the option to restore to factory settings exists during initial bios boot-up where it pretty well can't go wrong.
Do you want to wipe the entire c: drive and leave no OS or must you have a working Win 10 but without your stuff?
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Post by stuartandjan on Sept 6, 2019 8:11:18 GMT 10
The computer. I want to remove all the programs and files that I have added. Get something like CC Cleaner, it will put all 1s on you selected disck and I defy anyone to get data from it after that. Just deleting only takes away the index entry. |
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Post by dieseltojo on Sept 6, 2019 9:59:52 GMT 10
When I got my first large computer I read up on them in the standard computer mags. I came upon this article to keep the thing clean by getting rid of all the gunky (technical term) all the bits of code running around that has no home.
Yep I fixed the thing with “Reg Cleaner”, it solved all my issues. I couldn’t believe all the crap that was just floating around. I just couldn’t believe it. So I went through it and deleted all the rubbish. I was going to have a super-efficient computer alright.Next day I turned it on and it wouldn’t start….. Seem I over cleaned. My son said," Dad what you did was like in a car you chucked away the ignition switch and now have no place to put the key into. I now have to do a re-install."
I think it was something like Win 97 and he installed Win ME over it and it was ok.
He removed the reg cleaner and said nasty incriminating things to me and then all was good. |
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Post by GerryP on Sept 6, 2019 10:10:56 GMT 10
Get the free version of CCleaner, it'll clean all unwanted files and your registry without breaking anything.
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Post by dieseltojo on Sept 6, 2019 10:54:49 GMT 10
Don't get me wrong it wasn't the reg cleaner that was the problem. It was the newbie....  |
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Post by Old Techo on Sept 6, 2019 11:50:57 GMT 10
As I have recommended for 20 years and a hundred times..... well.... maybe a dozen times on fora... if you keep all of your data on a separate drive then it can be deleted in a jiffy. It can also be backed up so easily.
OS on c: drive and all personal data on d: drive so when you want to remove your stuff simply re-format d: or delete d: drive.
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Post by Mick Themungrel on Sept 6, 2019 12:38:26 GMT 10
Morning Mick,
It was only after I hit the sack that I realised you wanted to do a factory default reset.
or must you have a working Win 10 but without your stuff?
Leave win 10. It must be working. |
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Post by Frank and Brenda on Sept 6, 2019 14:35:58 GMT 10
Morning Mick,
It was only after I hit the sack that I realised you wanted to do a factory default reset.
or must you have a working Win 10 but without your stuff?
Leave win 10. It must be working. Guess that leaves my suggestion of a sledgehammer out then  |
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Post by Old Techo on Sept 7, 2019 8:39:20 GMT 10
Mick,
As I said earlier.... I‘ve never had much faith in Windows OS self-management and if your auto process is failing then you will have to go manual.
Although I am a whiz on Win 7 I have less practice on Win 10 but this is what I suggest.
To remove programs you have added, type ‘apps’ or ‘add’ or ‘programs’ in the search box and look for ‘add or remove programs’ then scroll through them and uninstall those you added.
As for your personal data, open Explorer and depending upon how things have been set up you may see something this, and you can open each of the folders in the blue circle and delete all the files within.
To be more thorough or to double check, click on c: drive (red circle) and then click on ‘users’ (2nd red circle) and you should see something like this with user folders in the red circle. One of them will be yours that I have shown as ‘Mick’. Chances are that you can ‘right click’ on ‘Mick’ and be given a delete option... but that may not be safe so open ‘Mick’ and delete your files within. Also worth checking files within ‘Public’ in case you have put stuff there.
When you open 'Mick' or 'Public' you should see something like this and check in the obvious folders for your files...
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The police and probably others as well. 
