Verified answer

http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx...

Follow instructions on this dell support page & it will format the PC back to out of box condition.Everything you put in will be gone

follow these steps to format your computer (clear the data off and put a fresh new OS on).

I don't recommend zeroing the disk since it wipes your recovery partition that contains the recovery OS that you paid for. your new customer won't have an OS or any drivers.

please make sure you give them the drivers media and OS media and office package and any other OEM media that came with your machine. OEM software is licensed only to stay with the machine, and it is illegal to keep it and install on another box (and it may not work anyway - Microsoft will flag you). besides - why would you want to keep the drivers disc for the computer?

be nice to them. make them happy.

a format will be sufficient to wipe the data. just don't choose "refresh" or "repair".

Reformatting your hard drive is not 100% effective. This is because reformatting only erases the index (the directory) of your hard drive. That's why computer forensics experts have software that can still easily recover data from hard drives that have been reformatted. To be 100% certain that nobody can see anything on the hard drive, remove the hard drive from the computer, find the nearest hammer, and use the hammer on the hard drive. Seriously.

Create a new account called "User" and then delete any other accounts and it will ask you if you want to keep any of the files, click No and everything should be deleted from the account you selected. Make sure you have whatever you want saved though, because it will delete EVEYRYTHING apart from installed programs! But all personal data will be erased.

Write zeros to the disk.

If you don't want anyone to see that information, there is absolutely no reason to include the hard disk drive in the sale. If you must include it, however, write zeros to the disk.

You can do this with more or less any LiveCD or by using the utility supplied by your HDD manufacturer.

best bet is to format your hard drive with your os disk, bc theres always stuff left behind but if u wanna do just browsing history uninstall explorer

Make sure to go to your hard drive, then documents and settings, (your user name), then delete the cookies and temp folders located here.

TuneUp Utilities 2010

The best. Download it.

Watch this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2y4rP-plE4

Delete all your history using this.