PC Cleanup

[Ole Anderson]

Donating my 6 YO Dell i3 Inspiron laptop to church. Replaced it because it was getting so slow. So I uninstalled most of my programs, deleted all data files, startup programs, pictures, favorites and any other personal information. 8GB RAM, down to 110 GB used of 480 GB HD. Still takes over 3 minutes to boot. All I left on it was Win 10, Chrome, Office 2016, Acrobat Reader, CCleaner, and of course all of the accumulated system stuff that runs in the background.

Deleted all of my internet bookmarks, not realizing it was Google synced to my new PC. Took me hours to figure out how to restore them. That is my skill level here. I did uncheck Google syncing.

What is the next big step before formatting the HD and starting over?

[Paul F Franklin]

If you haven't already replaced it, switching to a solid state hard drive makes a tremendous improvement in boot time and startup of programs. My dell of a similar vintage or older boots Win 10 in less than 30 seconds...

But don't let me talk you out of upgrading....

I think you covered most of the cleanup, but check and make sure you don't have any saved passwords in any of your browsers.

[Aaron Rosenthal]

If it were me….
I would remove the old hard drive and buy them a new one, and let them format it as they see fit. Umbuntu or windows, their choice.
That way, there’s no undetected program to foster peeking at your old data. Yes, those programs are out there.

[Curt Harms]

When companies recycle a computer they usually remove and destroy the hard drive. I've used DBAN (Dark's Boot and Nuke) in the past. DBAN overwrites the entire disk with gibberish, several times if you wish. I see that DBAN was acquired by a Finnish company. DBAN was forked and is now available as nwipe. I know nothing about nwipe. As Paul mentioned above, it might be worth investigating an SSD. They make booting MUCH faster than a spinning hard drive. There is cloning software available, often included with new SSDs. If it were me though I'd probably download a recent version of Windows from Microsoft's site and do a clean install. Microsoft prefers that you use their media creation tool. If you use their media creation tools you just insert a USB drive and follow the directions. I'm not using Windows so they direct me to this page:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...d/windows10ISO

You can find directions on how to create a Bootable Windows USB installer on several sites. Here's one that seems pretty popular

https://rufus.ie/en/

You might find you don't need a new machine after all. If you still want to donate your current machine so much the better. Give them a nice clean machine. A tip when installing Windows. It looks like you need to create a Microsoft account. You don't. When you install don't give the machine a network connection. Unplug any ethernet cables, don't connect to any wireless networks. You will then create a local account. Give it a network connection after installing, it'll download a bunch of updates and you're in business.

Edit: rereading your post it looks like you've already bought a new machine. If it were me, I'd still do a fresh install using Microsoft media. No 'helpful' stuff installed to bog down your machine. I haven't bought a new PC since maybe 2005 so don't know the current state of new machines.

[Chuck Wintle]

If you haven't already replaced it, switching to a solid state hard drive makes a tremendous improvement in boot time and startup of programs. My dell of a similar vintage or older boots Win 10 in less than 30 seconds...

But don't let me talk you out of upgrading....

I think you covered most of the cleanup, but check and make sure you don't have any saved passwords in any of your browsers.

As some have mentioned bootup will be so much quicker with a solid state drive and the prices have come way down. Much easier and safer than trying to add or delete programs on the old drive.

[John K Jordan]

As some have mentioned bootup will be so much quicker with a solid state drive and the prices have come way down. Much easier and safer than trying to add or delete programs on the old drive.

I'm a convert to SSD also. Pulled out the HD in my wife's desktop and installed an SSD. Have two in my laptop, it boots in about 30 seconds. Have three SSD drives in my shop desktop (3 TB total) and between those and the processors/GPU things like video editing are so quick. When I buy an external drive now I go for SSD unless I need large drives for backup/archiving.

Depending on the laptop, it may be a trivial job to take off the bottom and swap out an SSD for the HD. Dell tech support should be able to tell you.

JKJ

[Chuck Wintle]

I'm a convert to SSD also. Pulled out the HD in my wife's desktop and installed an SSD. Have two in my laptop, it boots in about 30 seconds. Have three SSD drives in my shop desktop (3 TB total) and between those and the processors/GPU things like video editing are so quick. When I buy an external drive now I go for SSD unless I need large drives for backup/archiving.

Depending on the laptop, it may be a trivial job to take off the bottom and swap out an SSD for the HD. Dell tech support should be able to tell you.

JKJ

the screws holding the SSD in place are very tiny and easy to lose....I had one flip onto the floor and I had to look very carefully to find it.

[Jim Becker]

My first SSD was the one I installed in my original Mac...a Mid-2010 27" iMac. I did leave the 1gb spinny drive in it, but it essentially never got used again. Every machine I have owned since has been SSD, including both MacBooks (2012 and 2019) and the Windows-based machine that runs my CNC machine. The Macbook Air I just took back from my younger daughter in trade for the 2012 Macbook Pro also has SSD. Definitely no looking back for me!

That said, the OP's going to donate the machine, so wiping the drive and reinstalling the Windows OS is the way I'd go. In fact I'm literally doing that "as we speak" with my older daughter's old machine next to my left elbow. I bought her a new all-in-one last week...it was time. I'm using the Microsoft tool to create a USB-stick to use for the reimaging. It's taking a little time because that computer is ugly-slow and "clogged up". It's been probably at least 5-6 years since I loaded it with Win10 to replace Win8.

[Ole Anderson]

I swapped in an additional 4 GB of ram last year, the speed increase was short lived. My replacement was a 2021 Dell Vostro i7 with a 1 TB SSD. I added an SSD to our Dell XPS video computer at church as the boot drive now it is up and running in less than 30 seconds. Yes prices have come down, I just ordered a 250 GB Crucial SSD as many of you have suggested. Just going to be used by our bookkeeper. I paid about $48 with tax. Thanks for all of your suggestions.

Jim, when you do the reimaging, how do you avoid bringing in all of the junk that clogged it up? Does it just do the Win10 OS?

[Paul F Franklin]

Just as an FYI, both crucial and western digital have come under fire quite recently because they changed the type of flash they use in some of their drives, most likely because of supply chain issues. The new chips are a *lot* slower. The problem only shows up when doing large transfers, because the cache can mitigate on smaller transfers. The worse part of it, and why they got a lot of criticism, is they didn't change the SKU when they made the switch. IIRC, they did change the data sheet, but they didn't publicize the change, and there's no easy way to tell which drive you are getting because the SKU are the same.

https://www.extremetech.com/computin...with-slow-ssds

[Larry Frank]

I replaced the HDD with an SDD on my older Dell XPS. I did it because the HDD was 10years old and could die at any time. I put in a 1 TB Samsung SDD and very happy with improved performance.

[Jim Becker]

Jim, when you do the reimaging, how do you avoid bringing in all of the junk that clogged it up? Does it just do the Win10 OS?

It was reimaged with the Microsoft utility that Curt mentioned up above. "Nothing but Microsoft". No third party bloatware, etc. The utility downloaded the image and created a bootable USB stick which it then used to do the dance. I cut it close with our power outage from the storm, however...it finished up about five minutes before we lost power at 17:45 until 22:55! It would be "not fun" recovering from a botched install from power going down I suspect.

And on my daughter's new HP all-in-one, I deleted all the third party "stuff" (the nice word) while I was setting it up for her. Fortunately, HP didn't send much of that on the machine's distribution.

[Frank Pratt]

If you choose to retain the existing hard drive, you need to use a secure erase utility to really wipe it clean. Just deleting files, or even reformatting the drive will not remove what's there. That just makes it more difficult to access, but given several hours & the right software, the data can be retrieved. As mentioned, an SSD is not expensive & will make a tremendous difference in perceived and real performance.

Whether you choose to replace the drive or reuse the existing one, reinstallation of Windows is a trivial task. Just download Windows 10 (it's free), burn it to a disk, and run the install. It's important that when windows asks for the key that you select the option to enter it later. If you do that, then the install will automatically retrieve the key & activate the new install (you need to be connected to the internet). The whole process probably take well under an hour & is very easy. Google it & you'll find tons of instructions on just how to do this.

My 13 year old high end Dell laptop took several minute to boot & took forever to load even a small file. I suspected the hard drive was going bad because the process monitor showed it running at 100% almost continuously. I replaced it with a 512 GB SSD (around $70) & reinstalled Windows. It now goes from cold shutdown to desktop in 13 seconds. Now rather than a fancy doorstop, it's a rather speedy laptop that should be good for several years to com.

[John K Jordan]

...it finished up about five minutes before we lost power at 17:45 until 22:55! It would be "not fun" recovering from a botched install from power going down I suspect.

You poor poor guy! Should I send you a spare UPS?

As for bloatware, in my experience HP has been terrible. My oldest son, who specs all my equipment, said he always buys business machines which are pretty clean. I've been happy with the several Dell laptops and Dell desktop he recommended, the latest. This one was not the top of the line but "snappy" for video editing - 8 core processor, Gforce GPU (really speeds up rendering), 32 G ram, 3TB SSD internal, 15GB external.

JKJ

[Jim Becker]

You poor poor guy! Should I send you a spare UPS?

The Internet connection (ONT and router/Mesh AP) are on UPS. Priorities, my friend. But the sump pump here at the new house doesn't have backup and that meant about 5" of water in the basement. Any longer outage and the HVAC system would have been at risk. I truly miss the generator right now...as Professor Dr. SWMBO mentioned to our younger daughter last night who is still living at the old property, "It was really nice having power during a power outage". Indeed.

Yea, a lot of the HP and Dell and other brand systems aimed at consumers come with a lot of "stuff" on them...the third parties apparently pay decent money for that...and the OEM setup for Windows incorporates the "bloat" install, too, for unwary buyers of Windows machines. I take a "just say no" approach during setup. I feel zero need for anything third party other than the browser of choice...Windows firewall and AV is just fine, IMHO.