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We have an old laptop that we were looking to donate to a small local charity.
I would like to wipe it and felt that a new install of windows 10 should be able to do that. Unfortunately I can't find the original discs that came with the laptop (plus I think it may have been xp or vista or something).
I can buy "genuine" keys of ebay for little money would I be able to create a start-up using these?
How else would I go about this?
Yours Eyepic.
Has it ever had W10? I did something similar ono an old laptop that had come with W7, but had since had a kosher upgrade to W10, a couple of weeks ago. I just ran the 'Restore PC' option or whatever it's called, which took it back to the original W7 build, but then Windows Update downloaded and installed the W10 stuff again (that took aaaaaaages mind) and it was back to a 'fresh' W10 build.
Yes has had w7 or something (I can't remember what).
Going back then a reinstall would be an option ... thanks.
To tell the truth Just about and action that worked would be an option for me.... Just been so long since I did something tike this That I have lost ideas and confidence.
I can buy “genuine” keys of ebay for little money would I be able to create a start-up using these?
That's what I've done a few times, works perfectly.
Download the installer from the Microsoft site onto a USB stick, install it, and use the ebay key when prompted.
The other option is Chrome OS, although that needs a bit of a fudge IIRC to get past the "what machine are you installing this on" screen (it's easy, just buried in the menu somewhere).
If you want to wipe it securely then you can reset the laptop under the Windows recovery settings menu. Choose the remove and reinstall option and tick to erase thoroughly (or similar wording), which should overwrite any spare space.
If you choose to erase quickly then files will be deleted but not overwritten.
Both options will take you back to the last version of windows that was installed
EDIT to say that erasing thoroughly could take hours
EDIT to say that erasing thoroughly could take hours
If this is the goal, and if it's an SSD then it's far better both in terms of time and the health of the drive to download whatever the manufacturers utility is.
SSD's only have a given number of write cycles (~100) before they fail, so there's no point wasting one of them just writing zeros over everything. It's quicker (takes seconds) just to have the drive utility delete the encryption key which renders the data on the drive useless.