Erase all data from Samsung laptop

Question

I am selling my old Samsung laptop which I got in 2009, and I would like to erase all data. When I press F4 and go to Samsung Recovery and choose the restore, it restores my computer to the same state as it was after the information given during the first startup: my very first user account is there (my name, my original password).

I can't find a way to reset my laptop to the factory settings or even remove those restore points in Samsung Recovery. Am I missing something here?

Solution

Well, one way is Darik's Boot and Nuke (DBAN). It's my personal favorite, if simply for the name.

Another option is to download any old Linux liveCD. Then just use dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1M, where /dev/sda is the hard drive, which you can find by doing fdisk -l. It's much, much faster and just as secure (unless people will use a SE microscope on your disk). This is the option I'd actually use, because DBAN takes so long.

Comments

[MDT Guy]

just wipe it, use D-BAN, its free