My friend is selling her laptop so she wants to remove all her data off it, normally i would tell her to format it and reinstall windows, but the clever clogs has lost her windows xp disk, so wont be able to put it back on if she does that.

( shes selling the laptop as scrap for parts and has said it dosent have the installiation software etc as it is faulty.

There is nothing massivly private on her laptop, but she does use things such as online banking, so want as much of her " fingerprint" removed so simply deleting files isnt really enough is it?

any tips?

if she's selling for scrap tell to remove the hard drive that's what contains all the data.

Problem solved, found her disk, reformatted it. guy who bought it wanted all the parts, going to see if he can repair it apparently... we think its beyond hope

reformatting the disc is OK, but if any one wants to find info on the disc software is available to retrieve it so any personal infomation can be got hold of.

I dont think there is anything massivly private on there, she uses it for emails and msn and storing her music and photos.

Tar!

that's OK then