How do i wipeout my computer and start over

You can do this if you're preparing to sell or give away your computer, or you might do this to troubleshoot a problematic PC. Wiping it and starting fresh can help you reclaim all your hard drive space and return your PC to full, factory-fresh performance. How you wipe your PC depends on what you plan to do with it afterward. If you are keeping the computer, you can proceed directly to resetting the hard drive back to a fresh version of Windows. But if you plan to sell or give the computer away, you'll want to take extra precaution to make sure the data stored on your PC is inaccessible to the computer's next owner.

If you have a hard disk drive HDD , it will be thoroughly erased when you refresh Windows. But if your computer has a solid-state drive SSD — and virtually all computers sold in the last few years do — you'll have to take an extra step to ensure your old data can't be recovered even after it's erased — you should encrypt it. The easiest way to encrypt your PC is to use the built-in encryption option in Windows, but not all SSDs support this feature. To find out, do this:.

After your hard drive is encrypted — or if you don't need to encrypt it — you can use Windows to wipe your PC, setting it back to its factory defaults. On the "Choose an option" page, click "Remove everything. The steps for wiping a Mac computer are quite different from wiping a PC. Whether you're trying to sell your Mac or just start fresh, read our article to learn how to wipe a Mac computer. For you. Once you've done that, the Utilities window will pop up in the middle of your screen.

Open the Disk Utility and erase your built-in hard disk. Make sure to select the disk, not the volume name listed beneath it. After the reinstall, the Mac will begin the setup process. This should look familiar if you've set up this computer before. You can do that by clicking System Preferences in the Apple Menu in the upper left-hand corner and then clicking Software Update. Eventually a screen will appear featuring a black background and two icons: your hard drive called Macintosh HD unless you changed it and Options.

Click Options. At this point, you may be asked to input a username and password. You can then follow the onscreen instructions, which include things like selecting your language and WiFi password.

Before beginning the factory reset process, back up all important files. The process for resetting your PC differs slightly for each version of the operating system. For Windows 10, go to the Start Menu and click on Settings. Follow the instructions to revert your computer back to when it was first unboxed.

Chromebook users have the easiest time wiping their laptops. Unlike Apple and Windows users, they already have most of their files stored online in Google Drive. So there's little to back up before you begin the process. To start a factory reset, click on the Launcher. This includes external hard drives and recovery drives. Because you probably have backups and other important files on those drives, you shouldn't use this unless you want to permanently erase everything associated with your computer.

If you purchased your PC off-the-shelf, you'll also see a Restore preinstalled apps? Disable this, and Windows won't include manufacturer bloatware and other preinstalled apps when it reinstalls. This option won't appear if you initially installed Windows yourself. Click Confirm when you're satisfied with the options above. The final screen before you start the factory reset is titled Ready to reset this PC.

You'll see a list of actions that the process will perform. Click View apps that will be removed if you want to double-check what apps are affected by this process. Finally, confirm the operation by clicking Reset , then wait for the process to complete. If you're factory resetting a laptop, make sure you plug it in to avoid losing power during the operation. You'll need to walk through the Windows 10 setup procedure once it's done. Make sure you take the recommend steps after reinstalling Windows 10 afterward.

If you're on an older version of Windows 10, Microsoft offers a different way to factory reset your computer, called Fresh Start. Starting with Windows 10 version , this option was replaced by the process described above, so use that if you're on a modern version. This will open the Windows Security app, showing the Fresh start option.

Click Get started to proceed. Note that if you're on at least Windows 10 version , clicking this link text will open Microsoft's Fresh Start page in your browser instead. To summarize, Fresh Start downloads a fresh copy of the most recent Windows 10 version, keeps your files and some settings, and doesn't leave any manufacturer bloatware, aside from Store apps.

In comparison, the standard reset option lets you choose whether to keep your files, doesn't save any settings, installs the same version of Windows, and lets you choose how to reinstall the OS. Keep in mind that after doing a reinstall this way, you may need to enter license keys for premium apps again, and will likely need to update system drivers.

If you're not using Windows 8 or 10, want to know how to factory reset Windows 10 without the Settings menu, or don't want to use the methods above for some reason, you can always factory reset Windows using installation media.

This allows you to install a fresh copy of Windows on your computer and wipe out everything currently on it. This will walk you through the process of loading the Windows 10 installer on a flash drive, booting from it, and erasing your current installation with a fresh copy. This is free and easy, as long as you have a spare USB drive. If you want to reinstall Windows 7 or 8 from scratch, you can use Microsoft's Windows 7 download tool or Microsoft's Windows 8.

You'll need to provide a valid Windows 7 product key to download its ISO, but that's not necessary for downloading Windows 8. Either way, simply insert the USB drive or disc containing your install media, then boot from the removable device.

You'll be greeted with the Windows setup screen, which you can proceed through to install a clean copy. Remember that doing this will remove everything currently on the drive where you install Windows.