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How to delete everything but OS securely?

I’m looking to sell my laptop. I’ve used stuff like DBAN before but that nukes the whole drive obviously. Is there any good way to leave the OS intact after a reset but also make sure that there’s no recoverable data?

Any ideas are appreciated. Thanks!

Edit to add: I don’t have the product key for the pre installed Windows 10 OS. Maybe there’s a way to recover that and reinstall after a full wipe?

Shadow ,
@Shadow@lemmy.ca avatar

Nuke it and reinstall from scratch. If windows was hardware activated before, you shouldn’t need a key to reactivate it. It’s tied to the hardware ID.

ShunkW OP ,

I didn’t realize that’s how it worked nowadays. Thanks for the info.

Zorsith ,
@Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Been that way since I wanna say Vista? 7 for sure.

DickFiasco ,

There’s no way to know if Windows stored some personal data in an OS directory somewhere, so nuking the whole disk is the only way to be safe. If this is an SSD drive, then wiping should be done with secure erase, not by overwriting like you’d do with a magnetic HDD.

ShunkW OP ,

I didn’t know about this feature. Looks like I should be able to do this with the Dell UEFI secure erase. Now to get a USB-A to USB-C adapter since that’s all the laptop has so I can reinstall the OS after.

dogsnest ,
@dogsnest@lemmy.world avatar

If I was in the market for a used laptop, I’d be happy to purchase it wiped with no OS, since that’d be the first thing I did, regardless.

Not being snarky - just suggesting that a blank laptop may not necessarily lessen its appeal.

ShunkW OP ,

I don’t think many people in that market are looking for a 5 year old Dell XPS. It’s still a good system, but I feel like most people that savvy might be looking for something a bit more modern.

PlasticExistence ,

Linux users are famously frugal. My 7 year old XPS is still doing fine for my needs.

Sidyctism2 ,

going by this microsoft-forum entry at least, totally wiping and reinstalling shouldnt be a problem since the key is saved on the motherboard. make sure you reinstall win 10 and not 11, since that might lead to problems.

j4k3 ,
@j4k3@lemmy.world avatar

I don’t think there is a way to do this without a full reformat and reinstallation. I would be looking for key recovery methods.

I think the main problem is the way data is rotated and managed in any flash device (SSD/NVME), but I’m also writing this to check back and see what others might say.

I think with flash memory management’s paging structures, if you want to know that no data is recoverable, the entire drive must have ever available page set to 0xFF. In any other operation, it probably just deletes the index header but not the physical data. Any hex dump of the actual flash memory can be recovered if it is not encrypted. If the entire drive is encrypted, simply deleting the index headers should, in theory, make it nearly impossible to find file entry points even if the person is quite advanced at cracking. At least, I’ve never seen someone demonstrate this kind of data recovery or vulnerability using tools like Ada or Ghidra. Most of the cracking that I’ve seen requires some kind of existing structure like unencrypted text strings to find an entry point.

W10 is dead at the end of this year. Just toss Linux on it for more value IMO. Fedora is quite straight forward to install. It just requires a USB with the .iso file. Use balena etcher to write the iso file to a USB flash drive from within Windows. Boot the device into the bootloader menu, either by looking up the key to trigger. It is often either F9 or F12. Then under boot options, be sure USB is active and ahead in the bootable order of devices. Finally reboot with the USB plugged in. It will boot into a live version of Fedora that uses the USB to load into RAM only. It won’t install or anything at this stage. You can then check that everything works in the full OS before attempting an install. During the install you can select the advanced options for drive management and fully overwrite the drive. This should take a VERY long time.

ShunkW OP ,

Yeah I can install Linux on it, but considering this is a second hand market I’m not sure it would be super easy to sell that way ya know? I just really need money ATM. When I’m employed, I work in cyber security so I’m just paranoid about anything being recovered lol. Maybe I’m putting too much thought into it.

j4k3 ,
@j4k3@lemmy.world avatar

Personally, I always plan on installing Linux. I’m going to wipe the device either way. Showing me that you’ve tested the thing with Fedora and that secure boot, and all the peripherals work already is a major plus for me. It saves me from doing the research and guesswork on the specific hardware. The second hand market is so iffy about giving enough info to do hardware research with stuff like Linux hardware probe.

I would install Fedora, then Linux hardware probe and do a scan, then attach that info. This would be worth more than most descriptions and likely generate more interest. If you sell W10 at this point, you’re looking for someone gullible enough to buy something useless in just 4 months from now. With Fedora it is still a fully ownable machine with a long and bright future.

ShunkW OP ,

I understand where you’re coming from, but again, I’m trying to sell this quickly through Facebook marketplace or the like. I don’t think I’m gonna have a wide audience for people looking for a Linux based laptop that are local and offering cash.

PlasticExistence ,

You’re correct about that, and generally anyone interested in a Linux distro is going to know (and want!) to install it themselves anyway.

ClipperDefiance ,
@ClipperDefiance@lemmy.world avatar

The best I can offer for your original question is to delete everything you don’t want and then run something like BleachBit to shred the data. As for the second question, if a computer originally came with Windows then it should automatically activate after reinstalling.

ShunkW OP ,

Thanks

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