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Wiping free disk space. When you delete a file, Windows removes the reference to that file, but doesn't delete the actual data that made up the file on your hard drive. Over time, this data will be overwritten as Windows writes new files to that area of the drive. Windows 10 - wipe a hard drive Original Title: help how do I wipe the harddrive clean on a dell 5348. It removes unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. PC Shredder is one free data removal.
HomeMoreList6 Best Hard Drive Eraser Tools For Your PC: Wipe Hard Drive...
Just like many people, are you also looking for some good hard drive wipe software? Even if you’re not, here’s why you should know of a worthy solution:
It’s definitely true that we are living in a cloud-connected era but at the same time, hard drives have great importance in our daily lives. It’s a matter of a few years when our computers will be shifting entirely to the cloud. But until then the hard drive will continue to exist and in our lives and run into problems. That’s when wiping your hard drive and clearing out all the data becomes very important.
Why should you wipe your hard drive?
There could be many reasons why you want to wipe your hard drive. For example, your hard drive might become corrupt and you can’t access it. Or, you want to sell your old computer to someone else (Yeah, it hurts) and want to remove every trace of your data from the machine.
When you wipe a hard drive, all the data that’s stored is erasing beyond the point from where there is no coming back. What I mean is that once you’re done erasing your hard drive, you won’t be able to recover that data unless you’re a forensic expert.
How does a hard drive wipe software work?
You can refer to these tools by many names: Hard Drive eraser, data destruction tool, Disk Wipe software, Drive Wiper, and so on. These tools include different data erasure or data sanitization techniques to remove sensitive data from your storage device. The list includes DoD 5220.22-M, Peter Gutmann, Bruce Schneier’s algorithm, and so on.
Basically, the sectors on your hard drive are replaced by 0s and 1s, making it next to impossible for an everyday user to recover that data. Each of these methods follows a different pattern and number of rounds (passes) to overwrite the sector on a hard drive.
6 Best Free Tools To Wipe Hard Drive on Windows and macOS
1. Windows 10 built-in hard drive wiper
Platform: Windows
If you want to wipe a hard drive on Windows 10, then you don’t need to go anywhere. The operating system comes preloaded with a hard drive eraser that can make your hard drive look like a new one.
But this disk wipe software is only helpful if you want to clean the hard drive that’s installed on your computer and you want to get rid of all the data.
- Go to Settings > Update & Security > Recovery.
- Under Reset this PC, click on Get Started.
- Click on Remove everything and follow the steps.
2. Disk Utility for macOS
Platform: macOS
Now, if you’re using a Mac, then MacOS also has a built-in data sanitization utility that you can use to erase your hard drive before selling your computer.
You can access the utility from the macOS recovery menu during startup or simply open Spotlight and type Disk Utility.
What are the best features of Disk Utility?
- It’s the best hard drive cleaning utility for Mac users (comes preloaded on macOS).
- Can be used to completely erase the hard drive.
- This hard drive eraser tool supports both internal and external storage media.
- It can also check disks for errors.
- It supports popular file system formats including FAT, exFAT, NTFS, APFS, Mac Extended, etc.
- It provides different erasing options including a fast (less secure) and a slower one (more secure) where it’s almost impossible to recover data.
What’s the bad part?
- This disk wiping tool is only available on computers running macOS.
3. DBAN (Darik’s Boot and Nuke)
Platform: Bootable USB (Windows PC)
I am not putting this hard drive eraser tool at the top of this list because the DBAN (Darik’s Boot and Nuke) is not actively developed anymore. Still, it’s one of the best tools to erase your hard drive.
Like most of the hard drive cleaning tools on this list, DBAN also started out as a free open source tool. But later, its parent company was acquired by Finland-based Blancco, and DBAN was discontinued after June 2015.
If you want to use DBAN software to wipe hard drive, then you can read our detailed post on it.
What are the best features of DBAN?
- It’s the most robust free hard drive wipe software you can find.
- Supports different cleaning methods including the Gutman methods, DOD 5220.22-M, DOD Short, quick erase, etc.
- This hard drive cleaning tool can be booted on an external media such a flash drive or CD, used diskless in a pre-boot execution environment.
- Supports automatic data wipe on network connected systems.
- Can clean hard drives based on SATA, ATA, SCSI interface.
What’s the bad part?
- Not in development anymore, so there’s no tech support.
- The user interface is old and not friendly for less tech-savvy users.
4. Eraser
Platform: Windows
Easer software is yet another free robust data wiping tool that can completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive running on Windows 10 (and older versions). Loaded with a variety of data sanitization techniques, Eraser can be a good fit for different users with different data cleaning needs.
You can consider Eraser as an alternative to DBAN in case you want to use this data erasure tool on a bootable media.
What are the best features of Eraser software?
- Works as a standalone Windows app to secure erase hard drive files. It can be booted from an external media.
- It supports a variety of data sanitization techniques including DOD 5022, Gutmann (35 passes), AFSSI-5020, HMG IS5. Schneier (7 passes), etc.
- Can be used to wipe an entire hard drive or individual folder on the system.
- A user can create and save multiple disk wipe tasks as per requirement.
- Disk wiping can be scheduled to automatically start at a particular time. User can set up a data destruction task to repeat itself.
What’s the bad part?
- Its installation process is a little bit tedious compared to other hard drive cleaning tools.
- Using the tool might not be easy for novice users.
![Wiping Wiping](/uploads/1/2/5/8/125845943/598542744.jpg)
5. Disk Wipe
Platform: Windows
After DBAN, Disk Wipe is one of the most popular hard drive eraser tools out there. This open-source software made for Windows operating system is completely free and provides an easy way to clear the data off your hard drive.
What are the best features of Disk Wipe?
- It’s an easy to use portable software to wipe hard drive for free.
- Supports well-known Windows file systems including FAT32 and NTFS
- Supports external storage media such as SD cards, flash drives, etc.
- Used popular data erasure algorithms including Peter Guttman, DOD 5220-22.M
What’s the bad part?
- The user interface doesn’t look good.
- Not very much feature-packed.
6. CCleaner Drive Wiper
Platform: Windows
I don’t think CCleaner needs an introduction to many people. It’s already a popular tool that can free up valuable space on your computer’s hard drive by removing unnecessary files.
But some people might not know that CCleaner also comes with an effective hard drive eraser tool that can be used to clean your storage media.
What are the best features of CCleaner?
- It’s a very easy to use free hard drive wipe tool which works inside Windows OS.
- Supports advanced overwriting up to 35 passes.
- User can configure to overwrite just the free space or the entire drive.
- This disk eraser tool can be used to wipe third party drives.
What’s the bad part?
- The disk wiper tools don’t have many features.
- It can’t be used on a bootable drive.
So, guys, these were some great hard drive wipe software that you can try on your Windows and macOS computers. We’ll try to expand this list with more names, so don’t forget to check it out in the future as well.
Also Read: How To Repair Corrupted Pen Drive or SD Card In Simple Steps?
Some people spend hours — maybe even days — trying to clean an infected Windows system and ensuring it’s actually clean and safe afterward. It’s usually not a good idea to do this — just reinstall Windows and start over.
This may seem like a daunting task, especially if you don’t have good backups of your important files. But it’s worth it to quickly obliterate an infection and ensure your system is safe.
If One Piece of Malware Slips By, Your Computer is Compromised
RELATED:How to Remove Viruses and Malware on Your Windows PC
The key to securing your computer is ensuring it doesn’t get infected in the first place. That’s why people run antivirus applications that can check programs before they run, ideally preventing a piece of malware from running even once. If malicious software makes it through this protection, it has free rein over your system until it’s discovered and removed.
This is a problem for many different reasons. The malware can take this chance to burrow deeper into your system, hiding itself from being discovered by installing a rootkit that starts up during the boot process. It can infect various system files. It can use its access to transmit your personal data, credit card numbers, and passwords over the Internet.
![Drive Drive](/uploads/1/2/5/8/125845943/324183971.jpg)
Worse yet, malware can function as a Trojan horse, opening the floodgates to additional malware that it will download and install from the Internet. If you find your computer is actually infected by a piece of malware, you don’t know if that’s the only piece of malware that’s infected your computer.
Antivirus Utilities Aren’t Perfect, and Can Take Time
RELATED:How to Use An Antivirus Boot Disc or USB Drive to Ensure Your Computer is Clean
Antivirus utilities aren’t perfect. To really clean up a system, you’ll want to run an antivirus boot disc to scan your Windows system for malware and try to remove it all — or at least reboot into safe mode. This scan process takes some time, and it isn’t guaranteed to be 100 percent successful. If your system is infected and the anti-malware software found and removed an infection — or, even more worryingly, multiple infections — there’s no guarantee your system is completely safe.
To mitigate this problem, you might want to run multiple different antivirus programs, scanning your system with those multiple engines to get a second, third, and maybe even fourth opinions. This takes more and more time, and you’ll never be 100 percent sure everything is gone, and your system is completely secure.
Fix Any Infection By Reinstalling Windows
RELATED:Beginner Geek: How to Reinstall Windows on Your Computer
Reinstalling Windows is the solution. If a computer is seriously infected — not just by a shady Ask toolbar or the browser cookies many silly security programs consider a “threat,” but by actual malware — we recommend starting over from a fresh Windows system. To do this, you just need to use your manufacturers’ recovery partition to restore your Windows system, reinstall Windows from disc or USB drive, or use the Refresh your PC feature found in Windows 8 or 10.
When you reinstall Windows, your system files will be wiped and they’ll be replaced with known-good ones from the Windows installation disc. You’ll also have to install your programs again, which will ensure they’re safe, too. This takes a bit of time, but perhaps not as much as you’d think — especially if you have good backups. It can also save time over long, arduous slog of cleaning an infected PC and triple-checking it.
Ensure you have backups of your important files before doing this! Some methods of reinstalling Windows won’t wipe your personal files, but it’s always good to be safe.
How to Quickly Back Up Your Important Files
RELATED:How to Use a Windows Installer Disc to Back Up Your Files When Your Computer Won’t Boot
If you keep good backups, you’re good to go. If not, you’ll want to back up your important files first. You probably shouldn’t do this while the infected system is running. Instead, we recommend booting from a Linux live CD or USB drive and using that clean system to copy your important data files to a USB drive. Believe it or not, you can also back up your files directly from a Windows installer disc if you have one lying around!
You’ll then have a backup, and you can copy the files from your backup to your fresh Windows system after reinstalling Windows.
Ensure Your Backups Are Secure
RELATED:50+ File Extensions That Are Potentially Dangerous on Windows
You’ll want to ensure all your backups are clean and uninfected, of course. Generally, the files to watch out for are the .exe files and other executable programs. These can be infected by viruses and infect your system later. Microsoft Office files could also potentially have malicious macros inserted into them, but modern versions of Office are more resistant to this. Other data files like images, videos, and music generally can’t be infected.
It’s a good idea to eye and .exe files with suspicion if they came from an infected computer. Re-download them if possible to ensure they’re safe. You’ll also want to run a scan of your backup files with an anti-malware program after getting a fresh system, ensuring nothing nasty is hiding in your backups somewhere.
This may sound like a Herculean task for people who don’t keep good backups and are worried about setting up their computers from scratch. But, if you do anything sensitive with your computer, from online banking and shopping to filing taxes with your social security number, it’s better to be safe than sorry. You won’t be worrying whether your computer is still infected in a week or two.
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