Best practices prep for sale - sell a PC

I have an old Dell laptop with Dell restore disk for Windows 2k Pro. About two years ago, I reverted to factory state using the restore disk, created an image using Paragon, installed Windows patches, created another image, installed software and used the laptop sparingly since.

Please recommend how to prep the laptop for sale. Shall I:

1. Simply revert to a very early image (via Paragon). This would be the easiest path.
2. Reinstall Win2K, but leave installing patches to the buyer
3. Reinstall Win2K, plus patches (a lot of waiting and rebooting)
4. Zero out or wipe the HDD (how?), then Reinstall Win2K
5. Other?

Thanks!

 

I would simply Wipe it and start new that way your name is not on the OS. Depending on how much your selling it for would be dependent on the time invested in getting it ready. In other words selling it cheap then wipe let the customer worry about the patch's. Making a profit off of it then patch it up make it ready for the buyer.

 

This:

 

Start the zero-out or wipe just before bedtime and wake up to a sellable PC. It takes a very long time to prep a hard drive with zeros or wipe. Have fun.

SourMilk out

 

Is Best.
How?
If drive is 2002 or newer, then Linux Live CD and hdparm, see here
Or
UBCD and HDDErase.exe.
Both hdparm from Linux and HDDErase, erase equivalent to physical destruction by accessing wiping that is built into the hard drives after 2001.

If the drive is older than 2002, you will most likely use something like D-BAN, also available on UBCD.

1. If you want, reinstall with patches.
2. Install Linux and let them see if they want Win2K
3. Just sell with clean drive and let them figure out what they want to do.

 

I'd wipe it and take the time to run all the updates...
Windows Updates
upgraded to Microsoft Updates if Office is on there...so it's updated too
Latest Java, flash, shockwave, PDF reader of your choice
A good free antivirus...MSE isn't an option for 2K, but perhaps AntiVir

Granted running all the MS updates takes a long time..but actual time invested by yourself isn't much...since you walk away and do other things while the install progress bar crunches away...every half hour or so you come back to a reboot prompt. So while the machine is taking 3 or 4 hours to run all those updates across several reboots...the actual time you spend clicking next...blah blah..is what, 15 minutes combined?

End result is a well running machine protected by updates, so the end user is more likely to have a good healthy computer that will work for them. Versus an un-updated...un-protected computer that may get infected quickly and end up with a displeased new owner.