How to wipe a laptop before you sell it

To wipe a laptop, reset Windows with Remove everything and switch on the option that cleans the drive as it goes. That deletes your files, apps and accounts, overwrites the space they sat in and puts a fresh copy of Windows back, so whoever has the laptop next switches it on to a setup screen with none of you left on it. It’s the factory reset built into Windows, it runs from Settings, and there’s nothing to download or buy.

Do the preparation first, because a reset can’t be undone and two of the jobs below are much easier while the laptop still has your details on it.

Before you reset it

1. Back up what you want to keep. If you use OneDrive, open it and check your Documents, Pictures and Desktop folders have finished syncing. If you don’t, copy them to an external drive. Look in Downloads as well, because that’s where forgotten things live.
2. Take out anything plugged in. USB sticks, SD cards, a disc in the drive if it has one. A reset doesn’t touch any of them, so whatever’s on them goes out of the door with the laptop.
3. Sign out of your browsers and your password manager. Make sure you can get into the password manager from your phone or another computer before you sign out of it on this one.
4. Turn off Find my device. On Windows 11 it’s in Settings > Privacy & security > Find my device. On Windows 10, Settings > Update & Security > Find my device.
5. Remove the laptop from your Microsoft account. Go to account.microsoft.com/devices, sign in, find the laptop in the list and remove it. You can do this from your phone, even after the laptop has gone.

If BitLocker is switched on, leave it. You don’t need to decrypt the drive first: a Remove everything reset with the drive cleaning turned on wipes it anyway.

Wiping a Windows 11 laptop

1. Plug the charger in. Microsoft warns that cleaning the drive can take several hours, and you don’t want the battery dying halfway through.
2. Open Settings, then System, then Recovery.
3. Next to Reset this PC, click Reset PC.
4. Choose Remove everything.
5. Pick Cloud download or Local reinstall. Either is fine, although cloud download needs the laptop on the internet for the whole reset.
6. On the Additional settings screen, click Change settings and set Clean data? to Yes. Click Confirm.
7. Click Next, then Reset.
8. Leave it alone until it reaches the first setup screen (the one asking for your country or region), then hold the power button to switch it off.

Don’t set it up again with your own account. The laptop’s ready to go at that screen.

Microsoft describes the cleaning option as making your files much harder to recover, and recommends it for a computer you’re selling or recycling. Without it, Remove everything deletes your files the way emptying the recycle bin does: out of sight, but still sitting on the drive until something writes over them.

Wiping a Windows 10 laptop

Same idea, different menus.

1. Plug the charger in, for the same reason as on Windows 11.
2. Open Settings > Update & Security > Recovery.
3. Under Reset this PC, click Get started.
4. Choose Remove everything.
5. Click Change settings and turn the cleaning switch on. Depending on your version of Windows 10 it’s labelled Data erasure or Clean data.
6. Confirm, then click Next and Reset, and switch it off at the first setup screen as above.

Windows 10 stopped getting support on 14 October 2025, but the reset still works exactly as it did.

Leave Windows on it, and the drive in it

Two well-meant ideas cost you money here. The first is taking the drive out, or drilling through it, to be certain. We understand the instinct, but our form counts a laptop with its drive taken out as modified hardware, which puts it in Faulty whatever state the rest of it is in. The second is wiping Windows off completely, or putting something else on the drive; our Excellent condition asks for the original UK software, and a laptop with no working copy of Windows doesn’t have it.

The reset above leaves both where they belong. On an HP with an 11th-generation Core i5, the difference between Excellent and Faulty is £80.50 today.

If it won’t turn on

Then you can’t wipe it, and that’s fine. We wipe every laptop that reaches us before anything is reused or recycled, dead ones included, and how we wipe every laptop sets out what happens to the drive. We’d still rather you did it yourself when the laptop works, because it’s your data and you should see it gone with your own eyes, but a laptop that won’t start is no reason to keep it in a cupboard. Remove it from your Microsoft account online either way. If it’s not starting, what to check when a laptop won’t turn on covers the likely causes before you give up on it.

After the reset

Put the charger with it if you still have it. Without a working charger it keeps its grade: we take £10 off an Excellent laptop, £75 off an Excellent gaming or workstation one, and nothing off Good or Faulty. Then get a quote to sell your laptop. If you haven’t sold to us before, how selling to us works goes through the collection, the check and the payment.