The free AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard is a disk partitioning and management tool that lets you easily wipe your hard drive. KillDisk offers a range of erasure methods, including those from the DoD, US Army, British government, and NIST. Select the drive you want to erase and click the Erase Disk icon. The program provides a graphical menu showing your various drives. You then use that media to boot up your Windows PC, where you can wipe the primary drive. You can easily create bootable disk wipe media on a DVD or USB drive, or set up an ISO file. Active KillDisk FreewareĪctive KillDisk Freeware is a more limited version of the $40 KillDisk Professional for Windows, but it’s still a capable and effective tool. Generally, the more passes you choose, the longer the process but the more secure the erasure. Options include One Pass Zeros, One Pass Random, or US Department of Defense DoD. You then choose the type of erasing pattern and the number of passes. The program asks how you want to reformat the drive-NTFS, FAT, or FAT32. Select the one you want to erase and click Wipe Disk. The utility’s simple interface displays your drives and partitions. Simply download and run the DiskWipe.exe file on your PC, or create a bootable environment on your USB flash drive and have Disk Wipe run from there. Disk Wipeĭisk Wipe is a free portable erasure utility that runs from a USB drive and wipes your Windows boot drive. This means the utility will fully wipe your drive by overwriting your data three times with different characters. Wiping your hard drive from within the operating system is a quick and convenient method, but a third-party utility can provide greater security and protection.įor those of you wiping a mechanical hard drives, make sure you choose a utility that meets the DoD 5220.22-M standard. Depending on the option you chose, you can now reinstall and set up Windows 7, thereby wiping out the previous installation. After making your choices, choose Skip when asked to back up your files. You will be presented with several different options on how you wish to reinstall Windows 7. (Note that if your PC does not have a recovery partition then you may receive an error here, preventing you from moving forward.) Open Control Panel, choose Recovery, and then click the Advanced recovery methods link. To make the process go smoother, you will need either a recovery partition or the Windows 7 installation disc. Windows 7 users won’t find the same reset tool that newer versions have, but you can still bring your hard drive back to factory settings under the right conditions. Your drive is wiped, your PC is reset, and Windows is reinstalled. After your PC reboots, you are placed at the Windows setup screen where you can go through the setup process again if you plan to keep the PC. Click Next and then choose Fully clean the drive to ensure everything is deleted.Ĭlick the Reset button. Click Get Started under the Remove everything and reinstall Windows section. If Windows 8.1 is on the drive you want to wipe, go to Settings > Change PC Settings > Update and recovery > Recovery. But if you plan to get rid of the PC, just shut it down at this point. If you plan to keep the computer, you can go through the Windows setup process again. Click Reset to start the process.Īfter the drive is wiped, Windows is reinstalled. You should then choose the Local reinstall option to reinstall Windows from your computer.Īt the Additional settings window, click the Change Settings link and turn on the switch next to Clean data. When prompted, choose the option for Remove everything. To wipe your drive in Windows 10, go to Settings > Update & security > Recovery, and then click the Get Started button. You can set up Windows again if you plan to keep the computer, otherwise shut it down now. Your computer goes through the reset process whereby your drive is wiped and Windows is reinstalled. From the Additional settings window, click the Change settings link, enable the switch for Clean data, and then click Confirm.Ĭlick Next to start the process, then hit the Reset button. If that doesn’t work, select the Cloud download. When asked what you want to erase, select Remove everything.Ĭhoose Local reinstall to reinstall Windows from this device, since it will run faster than the cloud download. Go to Settings > System > Recovery and click Reset PC. Wiping your drive in Windows 11 is largely the same as in Windows 10, with a few tweaks. To be certain your data can't fall into the wrong hands, a good hard drive eraser utility is still your best bet if you want a stronger and more secure method of wiping your drive. However, most computers now come with solid-state drives (SSDs), which are faster than their mechanical counterparts but can be trickier to wipe. Best Hosted Endpoint Protection and Security Software.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |