I’m trying to remove my wife’s information from a cpu

Make another account and set new account to administrator. Then remove old account.

If you are giving it away, I would hard wipe that PC and reinstall fresh.

You would be amazed at what kids know how to do and find with a PC these days.

Indeed. And if there’s really sensitive information, just drill the drive and toss it. You can zero out a drive, but still have some retrievable stuff there.

quote:

---

Dude's calling this thing a CPU, I doubt he has any idea how to do a fresh install of Windows

---

Took me half the page to figure out what I was reading

Alright, so this isn't the best way to ensure all of your files are wiped (that would require you to download a separate utility, which we are going to avoid), but it's the easiest good way:

1. Click the Start/Windows button on the taskbar at the bottom of your screen and click on the "power" icon, which should bring up shut down, sleep, restart.
2. Press AND hold the Shift key on your keyboard, and while doing so, click Restart.
3. Once your PC has restarted, you should boot into a blue "recovery" menu.
4. Click Troubleshoot.
5. Click Reset this PC.
6. Click Remove Everything.

I can't remember if there's anything past that, but I was disinclined to test it for science. If there is, it should be self explanatory.

ETA: Just as an FYI, CPU stands for Central Processing Unit and refers specifically to the little chip of silicon that most people call the "processor", and it's likely made by either Intel or AMD. What you're talking about is more commonly referred to simply as the "computer" or "PC". Some people will get cute and call it the chassis, but that's technically incorrect as that refers solely to the case itself. So just stick with computer/PC

You need to install something like DBAN to a usb drive, and do a DoD wipe at the least before giving it away.

quote:

---

You need to install something like DBAN to a usb drive, and do a DoD wipe at the least before giving it away.

---

Explained, just for funsies:

When you "delete" a file on a storage device, it's not truly deleted. The address, or location, of the file is removed from memory and that space is then allocated as "free" and therefore available to be overwritten. Until it is in fact overwritten, it's still sitting there. That's why you can sometimes "recover" deleted files. What DBAN, and other utilities like it, do is to "delete" all of your files, and then overwrite all of the file locations with junk data (random 1s and 0s), and then "delete" that data. So if anyone tried to recover anything, it would just be junk binary.

If there was really sensitive data kept on the drives, I would suggest that. If not, and you're just giving it to a kid, it's not best practices, but it's probably fine.

Do yourself a favor and do not give anyone a computer. You owned it so any problems the next person has they will contact you about. I'd rather give someone a 100 bucks cash than an old computer.

Well, on the bright side, you can always get him to figure out Jody's real name.

quote:

---

Do yourself a favor and do not give anyone a computer.

---

100%. They're coming to you with all problems.

quote:

---

Well it’s actually a all in one - smartass

---

That doesn't change anything.

What you were essentially doing was talking about wanting to clean out your vehicle but saying "engine".

Here's a quick rundown...

This is a cpu (Central Processing Unit):



This is the primary type of "computer chip" needed to make your computer run (it's the actual "brains" of the computer).

What you were calling the cpu was actually the whole computer itself.

Towers/Desktops:



All-in-one (also referred to as a desktop even though they are usually just laptop parts slapped behind a monitor);



Laptops and tablets are simply that, just "laptops" and "tablets".

If you want to get a teeny bit more technical, you were wanting to wipe the data from your hard drive (for the vehicle analogy it would be "inside the cab" or even "the trunk"). For conversational purposes on this specific topic though, "computer", "tower", or the specific type (desktop, laptop, etc) are interchangeable with "hard drive".