This does not wipe the drive and the data can still be recovered. What’s the difference between formatting and wiping a laptop?įormatting a computer simply means deleting the files on the hard drive. Once you have a backup, you can proceed with wiping your laptop. ![]() This can be done by transferring files to an external hard drive or cloud storage. First, you need to back up all of your important data. Selecting cookies worth saving, folders to ignore, folders to focus on, and startup options will personalize CCleaner to your uses.If you’re looking to dispose of your laptop, there are a few things you need to do. You can also format the entire drive, but there's not much special about that.Īlways run several drive wiping tools before selling an old hard drive.ĬCleaner's Options panel gives access to several powerful configuration options, allowing you to set CCleaner up to your tastes. Perform 35 shredder passes for the most thorough security. Here you can securely perform multiple overwrite passes on any "deleted" content from your drives, hopefully obliterating it for good. The last feature of the Tools tab is the drive wiper. All of your restore points are listed here and you can restore your computer from here, again bypassing the control panel. Be sure to retain a "known good" restore and a few other recent points, but get rid of any you don't need (or suspect are infected) by using CCleaner. ![]() System Restore has been a powerful tool over the years (despite its early life as the 'virus incubator'), but accumulating restore points can be a massive waste of space. Be careful when deleting things, though - always ask in the comments section below if you're unsure of what is required for Windows. The Startup menu, quite simply, is a fancier version of msconfig - you can select what programs you'd like to run when your system starts up, delete programs from the list, and export your current list to a text file (in the event you want to revert later). The Uninstall tab not only uninstalls programs, but also allows for entry deletion and renaming, searching, and exporting to text files. The Tools tab has rapidly become one of my favorites: The CCleaner uninstall option attempts to cleanly remove unwanted programs (hopefully destroying residual registry entries or other hidden files), optimize startup applications, manage system restores, and perform a drive-wide file shredding process (since your deleted files aren't actually deleted). It also, smartly so, prompts the user to save a backup prior to fixes in the event that more problems spring up. CCleaner scans the host computer's registry for errors, duplicate content, broken content, and orphaned content (remnants from uninstalled applications) and then gives the option to fix the errors it finds. The registry cleaner offers another simple-yet-effective blaster feature. The analyze button checks to see how much there is to actually obliterate, which can be followed up by a quick click of the "Run Cleaner" button to remove all those unwanted files. ![]() Searching through cookies, internet temp files, run cache, recent document tmps, explorer MRUs, thumbnail cache, the clipboard, recycling bin junk, and old log files can result in - at times - gigabytes of freed up data. CCleaner is a free utility that can be downloaded from Piriform here: ĬCleaner's main feature is its "cleaner" functionality: For the most part, it just finds junk or duplicate files and terminates them in classic T-800 style.
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