How to Wipe a Computer Hard Drive
This process could take several minutes to several hours depending on how big the drive is and what method you choose. You can now install Windows on the drive, create a new partition, sell or give away the hard drive or computer, recycle or dispose of it, restore your backed up files, or whatever else you need to do. We’re big fans of DBAN, our first pick on that list. It’s probably the most widely used hard drive wiping tool (but please know that it doesn’t wipe solid-state drives). See our How to Wipe a Hard Drive With DBAN tutorial if you’re nervous about hard drive wiping or prefer a more detailed walkthrough. If you’re using a CD or DVD, this process usually involves burning the ISO image to a disc and then booting from the disc to run the program. If you’re using a flash drive or other USB drive, this process usually involves burning the ISO image to the USB device and then booting from that USB drive to get started.
A Simple Hard Drive Wipe Alternative
Beginning in Windows Vista, the format process changed and a single write-zero pass is applied to each standard (non-quick) format. In other words, a very basic hard drive wipe is performed during a format. If a single write-zero pass is good enough for you, consider your drive wiped after a regular format. If you want something even more secure, follow the hard drive wipe instructions above. This is a wipe of just the partition you’re formatting. If you have more than one partition on a physical hard drive, you’ll need to format those additional drives as well if you want to consider the entire physical disk as “wiped.”
Is Shredding Files What You’re Really After?
If what you really want to do is just make sure that files you delete on a regular basis are really gone and not retrievable with special tools, a data-wiping program is more than you need. See our list of free file shredder software programs for programs that “destroy” individual files on an as-needed basis. Many of those shredder programs also do what’s called a free space wipe, which is a wipe of all the “empty” space on your hard drive. The purpose of this is to ensure that the files you’ve already deleted are actually deleted for good. Still confused? See Wipe vs Shred vs Delete vs Erase: What’s the Difference?
