How to sell an old windows laptop

[SOLLERBOY]

Hi, I have a four/five year old sony laptop that I want to chuck on ebay. my issue is I haven't got a clue how to wipe the hard drive or install xp or whatever I need to do. It's easy on osx just to wipe the hdd and reinstall but I need some help with windows. Any advice on what i should do to get it ready to sell?? Thanks.

 

[Str8edgepunker]

You're going to need to download an Ubuntu Live CD so that you can boot from that and wipe the drive. Lifehacker has a pretty good writeup here so take a look at it. I'd probably just leave the drive wiped and include the Windows XP install CD so that they can start fresh.

 

[Synchromesh]

You can use Hiren's Boot CD which has all the necessary programs. Or you can just use the Windows installer. The XP version lets your format the drive before installation and it's easy to use so it shouldn't be a problem.