Of course, you’ll want to back up any important data you may have to another drive, or to the cloud, before you perform a factory reset (or, perhaps, break out the hammer and nails). “Just make sure you're wearing safety glasses.” “The gold standard in hard drive security consists of using a pointy nail and a few swift swings of a hammer,” he says half-jokingly. That’s why Richard Fisco, who oversees electronics testing for Consumer Reports, cautions that some consumers may feel more comfortable removing the hard drive altogether before sending the laptop off to its new home. Theoretically, however, a determined hacker may be able to use advanced data recovery software to unearth your old files, even if you’ve performed a factory reset.

So if you're handing off your old computer to a friend or sibling, or donating it to a well-known charitable organization, the steps listed below should suffice. In most cases, wiping a computer with a factory reset will be sufficient to safeguard your personal data. 'Reinstalling your system before sale is a much safer alternative.” Or you can miss deleting some important files altogether,' he says. “You're likely to forget things like passwords saved in browsers and personal data in the deleted items folder.