A good removal and recreation of partitions and formatting the drive would get rid of things for most people, but then you would have to reinstall the operating system to make it functional again. Do you have the right CD for this? There are also utilities that would write zeros to the drive which you MAY want to use, but probably are overkill.
Have you reinstalled Windows before? What version are you using? Do you have a floppy and a CDROM? These answers will provide with the technical ways to proceed.
No, I haven't reinstalled Windows before and I've got Windows XP Home Edition. I have the specifications here:
Specification
CPU Intel Pentium 4 3.06 GHz (Northwood)
BIOS PhoenixBIOS. Press the F2 key to enter.
Memory 512MB PC2100 DDR SODIMM (2 memory slots. Max 2GB)
Hard Drive 40 GB Hitachi Travelstar
CD Drive HL-DT-ST DVD-RW GWA-4040N
Screen 15" TFT (Native Res.1024x768)
Video Card nVidia GeForce FX Go 5300
Sound Card Realtek AC'97 audio
Modem Intel 537EA
Network Card Realtek 8139 / 810X (Onboard)
Prism 3890 802.11g wireless ***
PC Card 2 x Type I/II, 1 x Type III
Ports 2x PC card slot
3 in 1 card reader **
1x IEEE1394 (firewire)
1x IR
1x Parallel
1x TV Out ****
1x External VGA
4 x USB 2.0
1x RJ-11 modem
1x RJ-45 LAN
1x Line-out
1x Line-in
1x S/PDIF
Battery Info Lithium Ion battery. Rated up to 2 hours 50 minutes of continuous use.*
Dimensions 325 x 288 x 44mm
Weight 3.6kg
I do have the recovery cd's but I heard it's not enough to wipe everything. I just want to make sure everything is cleared before I sell it, due to hearing from the news and stuff that some people can hack into anything these days even if deleted years old.
Hope to hear from you soon.