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. Note that the methods in 1 above allow you to reinstall Windows in effectively the same way without manually creating a USB installer, so they're much more convenient.
While the three methods listed above will work for the most users, there are a few advanced ways to reset Windows, if you need them. To run a Windows 10 factory reset from boot in case you can't get into Windows normally, for example , you can start a factory reset from the Advanced Startup menu.
Under the Advanced startup section, click Restart now to reboot into Advanced Startup. Alternatively, you can open the Start menu and expand the power menu there, then hold down the Shift key as you click the Restart button. In case you can't do either of these, try pressing F11 as you boot, which will open Advanced Startup on some systems. Failing this, Windows will launch Advanced Startup on its own after three failed boots.
You can pick Advanced options for more choices, but none of them let you factory reset Windows 10 unless you have a saved system image. Otherwise, you may be able to boot into the BIOS and directly load the recovery partition on your hard drive, if your PC manufacturer included one. However, if you factory reset with this method, you'll reinstall all the manufacturer bloatware.
While it's not ideal, it can work if you have no other options. You can also type "create a recovery drive" into the Start menu to access a tool that lets you make your own. However, this requires a fair bit of space, and you'll have to do it before you have a problem. If you didn't already make one, you're best off making a new Windows 10 install disk, as described in 3.
There's also no way to factory reset your laptop without turning it on; you need power to perform all the above operations. You have several options for factory resetting a Windows computer. If you're using Windows 8 or 10, the built-in factory reset option is quick and easy. Windows 7 users should download an image from Microsoft and perform a clean installation that way.
Whether you need to fully reset your laptop before you sell it, or just want to refresh your PC for a performance boost, one of these methods will have you on your way as fast as possible.
Next time, you might not even need to reset Windows. There are other ways to get your computer to a clean state without reinstalling. What specifics do we know about the new laptop?
He left his IT job to write full-time in and has never looked back. He's been covering tech tutorials, video game recommendations, and more as a professional writer for over seven years. If you haven't already, signing up for a cloud storage service or attaching an external hard drive can help here. With those preparations out of the way, you're ready to reset your laptop and enjoy all of the benefits that it brings. Click Get started under Reset this PC to begin the reset process.
Windows itself recommends that going through a reset might be a good way of improving the performance of a computer that isn't running well. On the next screen, Windows gives you the option of removing everything or keeping your personal files—essentially what you've got saved on the desktop and in the designated user folders Documents, Pictures, Music and so on. Don't assume that Windows will know where all your personal files are kept.
In other words, make sure they're still backed up, just in case. Pick Keep my files to reset Windows core settings and files without interfering with your personal stuff; pick Remove everything for a more comprehensive wipe, which means you'll need to add your files again later from your backup. Before the reset starts, click Change settings to choose whether the Data erasure feature is enabled; this essentially overwrites data on disk and makes sure it can't be recovered.
Otherwise you can leave it be. Click Reset to confirm and the process gets underway; it might take a while, so be patient. When Windows reappears, if you've chosen the Remove everything option, you'll need to log in again from scratch using your Microsoft account credentials, and put all your programs and files back in place. The process of resetting a MacBook is slightly more involved than it is with Windows, as there's no option built into the main operating system interface.
Here you can pick Reinstall macOS if you just want to reset the key parts of the operating system without touching any of your personal files though we'd still recommend having them backed up , just in case.
Follow the steps below, or consider taking things a step further by hiring a professional company to ensure your data has been destroyed. A factory reset factory reset means deleting anything that wasn't on the device after it came out of production, so this will definitely make it impossible for you to practically access programs or files on your computer. It's important to know what a factory reset actually does, though.
It puts all applications back into their original state and removes anything that wasn't there when the computer left the factory. That means user data from the applications will also be deleted.
However, that data will still live on the hard drive. Factory resets are simple because they're programs included on the computer when you first get your hands on it. It's useful to reset errors with an operating system or helping restore the computer's functionality or speed. There are limitations, though.
Factory resets leave data in the hard drive, so those pieces will live on until your hard drive is overwritten with new data. In short, the reset can give you a false sense of security. A complete erasure would actually look more like degaussing destroying the magnetic field around a hard drive to destroy its data , or actually smashing up the hard drive to bits.
Context is still key. If you only ever really played games or finished school work on your computer, there's probably little risk in using a factory reset as your primary form of data wiping. But if you own a company and complete that work on a computer, you may have employees' social security numbers on the hard drive, for example.
That means you should probably consider hiring an expert to finish the data wiping—especially because the government has certain standards for data sanitation, depending on the field you work in. Inside your hard drive are two rotating discs that sort of resemble a CD. These are called platters, and they're the pieces of hardware that actually store all of those cat videos and family photos. The platter stores data onto its circular surface in chunks of 1s and 0s. Platters are usually ceramic, glass, or aluminum, and work like a record player.
Centered on a spindle, the platter rotates and an electronic current reads and writes data onto the surface. Electronic components power the whole operation. When you delete data from the computer through a factory reset, the information is hidden from the computer, but still stored on the hard drive. If a hacker uses data forensics tools , they can find bits and pieces of those deleted files in the hard drive storage, making it possible to recover pretty much everything. There's much online debate about the best ways to completely destroy the data inside, but most solutions come down to water, hydrochloric acid, magnets, or a blunt object you can smash them with easily.
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