
Now that you have everything stored safely elsewhere, it’s time to erase everything you don’t need and reset the device to the factory settings. This will be a bit longer of a process, as you’ll have to pick the files you’d like to save manually and move them over to your storage device.

Use an external hard drive: If you’d rather have your files on a physical hard drive (or don’t want to pay for cloud storage) you can use an external hard drive to save your files.You can easily set up favorite folders that sync to the cloud automatically. All Microsoft users get a free 5GB chunk of storage, and there are paid plans if you need more room. Use OneDrive: Microsoft’s cloud-based storage solution is great for backing up photos, documents, and more to a safe place before you erase your laptop.You only need an extra drive with enough room to store the system image. This process might sound daunting, but it’s quite simple.


To truly protect yourself and your data, you’re going to want to completely factory reset your laptop. While signing out of all your accounts and deleting your files may look like a clean slate from your end, you could still be turning over plenty of your personal data to a stranger if they have any sort of data recovery know-how. If you’re planning on selling your laptop because you’ve upgraded to a newer model or are making a system switch ( Apple’s new M2 chip sounds very exciting), you don’t want to hand over your device to the first guy to respond on Facebook Marketplace and call it a done deal.
