I bought a Gateway Notebook a couple of years ago in the US. It came preloaded with Windows Vista. It did not come with back up disk, I have to make my own. I have since upgraded the Vista to Windows 7 then again to Windows 7 Ultimate. I now want to give it to my sister in law, but I want to make sure all my data is off the hard drive.

1) I am assuming that I will need to reformat the Hard drive a couple of times to make sure all the old data is off the drives.?

2) After I reformat the Hard drive I will have to re-load Windows Vista then upgrade it again to Windows 7, then upgrade it again to Ultimate?

My questions are?

A) Am I correct in assuming that I will have to go through steps 1 & 2 above?

If I do what is the best way to do it, making the back up of Vista and re-installing it?

C) Is there another easier way to delete all the data on my hard drive except the operating system?

Thank you in advance for any and all help.

You can use a free tool like Eraser to thoroughly shred the info on the drive. Unless your sister-in-law works for the CIA, the data will be pretty much gone.

Unless you have extremely sensitive data on the disk

then a simple format and re-install is all you need.