Users Guide

Prechecks for erase

Figure 109. Running prechecks for erase on your old PC

The following prechecks are performed on the old PC when the erase option is initiated with Dell Data Assistant:

● Battery/Power Source Check—Dell Data Assistant will check and prompt you to connect the PC to an AC power source to

proceed with the erase process.

● Bit locker/Device Encryption Check—Dell Data Assistant will check if the Bitlocker encryption is enabled on the Windows OS

drive (i.e. C Drive in most cases) and will prompt you to disable/turn off the Bitlocker encryption on the OS drive to proceed

with the erase process. If the Bitlocker encryption is enabled for Non-OS drives, the erase process will take care of disabling

the Bitlocker on those drives

● Local Drive health Check—Dell Data Assistant will check the local drives on the PC for hardware issues and will warn you to

expect hardware failures during the erase process if you proceed. It evaluates the health of the local drives by checking

values of certain parameters, which should be within acceptable thresholds.

● External Drive/Media Check—If an external drive is connected to the PC, Dell Data Assistant will show a message that the

data stored on the external drive won't be erased, but it is recommended to disconnect them before proceeding with the

erase process.

● Multiple User Accounts Check—If there are multiple user accounts present on the old PC, Dell Data Assistant will prompt

you to migrate all the user profiles before proceeding with erase. You may choose to either directly proceed with the erase

process or first migrate all the user profiles from the old PC to the new PC before resuming erase.

● No Migration Performed Check—If you perform an erase of your PC without migrating your data, you may end up

permanently losing your photos, videos, documents and other files present on that PC. Dell Data Assistant will prompt you to

migrate all your files before beginning the erase process.

Disabling BitLocker

When Bitlocker encryption is enabled on your hard drive, the erase process cannot proceed. Bitlocker is used by Windows for

encrypting your drives, which helps protect your files and folders from unauthorized access in case your device is lost or stolen.

This option may be enabled by default on some Windows systems. Once the encryption is turned off, you can click Try Again on

Dell Data Assistant.

This guide provides four options for unlocking your hard drive. We recommend trying the steps in order.

NOTE:

Depending on the version or update number of your Windows installation, these steps might differ a bit and evolve

with time.

For additional detail, view Automatic Windows Device Encryption/BitLocker on Dell Systems.

Data Erase