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. Create a system image: A system image is a copy of all data on a drive volume, which is perfect for recovering your system after a crash or transferring everything (including the smallest of settings tweaks) to a new PC.There are three easy ways to ensure your data is backed-up properly: There’s nothing worse than deleting everything on your device with reckless abandon only to remember those precious photos or important documents that you only had stored on its drive. The very first thing you need to do is backup the files on your laptop that you’d like to save. They’ll be very nearby though! Backing up your files The steps are fairly similar for older versions of Windows, although some of the menus may exist in alternate locations. We’re resetting a PC running Windows 11 in this guide. 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.

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