Wipe my ipaq!

[jim5945]

Time to pass on my trusty 4150 to it's next owner. It's been a good run, but it is time to move on. Following HP's procedures hasn't cleaned off my PDA. After the power-on/reset instruction set, my PIM restores every time. How do I completely wipe out every byte of user data? If I am going to pass on my PDA it must be as if it is out-of-the-box blank. How can I achieve this? Thanks.

[Darius Wey]

Welcome to Pocket PC Thoughts.

Have a look at this post: http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=225834#225834

Note that the data you have in the Built-in Storage and Storage Card won't be purged by performing this hard-reset procedure. You will have to remove them manually by opening File Explorer, tapping-and-holding on an empty space and selecting 'View All Files', then navigating to the respective areas and deleting the files.

[DrAT]

I think that you'll find that 'PIM Mirroring' is enabled in iPAQ Backup. It ensures that you can't lose your contacts etc. If you disable this, you can then delete your PIM data and it won't be restored when you reset your device. As mentioned before, you'll have to delete the information on any memory cards and permanent memory.
A sure-fire way of deleting eveythng is to set up security on your device. Set it to hard reset if the passwords aren't entered correctly. Then it's just a case of entering a wrong passwords a few times and everything will be erased, including the File Store (though not data on any memory cards.)
Remember to back up your PIM data to Outlook if you want to keep it, and drag any registrations, documents etc. to your PC from an ActiveSync browser window. You can't restore a backup file to a new device.

[jim5945]

Gents,
That got it!! The IPAQ Backup was keeping a copy for restoration after every hard reset. I re-formatted the IPAQ Store, then performed another hard reset. Presto-blanko, everything gone!!. Thanks for all your input.