Jul 07, 2020 Darik's Boot And Nuke (DBAN) is an entirely free data destruction program used to completely erase all the files on a hard drive. This includes everything —every installed application, all your personal files, and even the operating system. Hard Drive Eraser can help you with this task. This standalone utility deletes the contents of any hard drive on your system in such a way that it's impossible to recover the data. It includes four different wiping methods, ranging from the most simple one, Write zeros, to the safest – and slowest – Peter Guttman method that overwrites data. To be as safe as possible, you must overwrite, erase or wipe both the free space and slack space, also the Windows swap file (a.k.a page file) that could contain private data and you wouldn't want to have fallen into the wrong hands. Below are free hard drive erasers rated with their strengths and weaknesses. Hard Drive Eraser uses an advanced and secure algorithms to erase drive volumes and partitions. The speed of erasing is dependant of the speed of your system, particularly hard drive. To download Hard Drive Eraser check the download pagewith the latest version. Sep 02, 2020 Choose the Add Files or Add Folder/Drive button to load multiple files or a single folder at once. Files and folders will be added to the queue, after which you can click Erase File/Folder to securely delete the data. Data Sanitization Methods: Write Zero. The data wipe method can run up to 16 times for greater privacy.

1. Hard Drive Eraser Free
2. Hard Drive Eraser Mac

Position: How Tos - How to completely wipe hard drive in Windows 10/8/7?

Summary

Overview on wiping hard drive

It's common to most users to sell or give away computer or hard drive when they want to dispose of old device or upgrade to new ones. You may have already formatted the hard drive or deleted files on it in order to erase sensitive personal data and avoid becoming the victim of identity theft.

However, the fact is that wiping out a hard drive is not as easy as deleting data or formatting hard disk. Simply deleting files by Shift + Delete or emptying the Recycle Bin does not permanently clear data, as deleted files can easily be recovered by recovery software. Formatting a hard drive does not completely erase data either. Though operating system cannot see deleted or formatted data and the drive looks empty, average users are able to get back lost data easily with the help of hard drive recovery software.

If you view tech forums or comminutes online, you can see lots of users looking for an easy way to clean storage devices, and here is one of them:

'What is the best way to clean the hard drive of my laptop? I'm going to selling it to someone but want to ensure all personal files are securely erased. What I want to do is cleaning hard drive completely and reinstalling Windows 7 (its configurations does not suitable for Windows 10). Everything on the hard disk has been backed up to my external hard drive, I'm hoping one of you here can tell me how to clearing PC step by step? I know how to install Windows from CD but have no idea how to safely wipe hard disk. Many thanks!'

Why deleting and formatting is not the same as erasing hard drive

Are you one of those who hold the view that deleting a file is similar to erase it? If yes, you should take a fresh look at this issue. We'll explain reasons in an easier manner.

Hard drive is a kind of storage devices which is used to store digital data. Files are stored on the surface of magnetic and rotating platters in hard disk case. Hard disk changes the magnetic property of platter surface to 1 or 0 when reading or writing data. Thus all data on hard drive will be finally stored in the form of basic binary data, for example, when system saves data like photos, music, etc. on hard drive, rows of zeros and ones are recorded on platters.

When a file is deleted, those ones and zeros of that files stays unaffected, for only a pointer indicating the file is being deleted. Therefore, the recovering deleted files is available before file data gets overwritten or damaged. What about disk formatting? Formatting works in a similar way, as it does not actually wipe data. Formatting disk or partition looks like tearing the contents of a book without disturbing actual chapters of the book. Recovery software is also able to retrieve lost files from formatted disk.

How does hard disk wiping works?

You may wonder how disk wiping works since deletion and formatting does not work on permanently clean hard drive. Apart from physical damage to hard drive, we can completely remove data with disk wiping technology.

As we've mentioned above, to completely erase disk, we should remove those binary data, which means overwriting those zeros and ones with new data. Once binary data of a file is replaced and overwritten by new data, it cannot be recovered any more. Some professional disk eraser software is able to filling up disk with zeros or random information sector by sector, ensuring no data can be recovered from a wiped disk.

What to do before wiping a hard drive

Some preparatory work should be done before wiping computer hard drive in order to make sure the disk wiping can be completed without interruption or causing extra issues.

• Download and install hard drive wipe software. If you plan to clean hard disk on your own, a disk wipe tool is necessary. You should select one easy-to-use and effective tool for the task. If you want to wipe the entire computer, you should make sure the software can work on bootable drive.
• Ensure battery is full. If you want to wipe a laptop, you should make sure the battery is well charged or connected to power. If power goes out during disk clearing, it might spell disaster to the drive.
• Backup your data to a different hard disk. When you wipe your computer, everything on it will be lost, thus you should back up any files you want to keep to another hard drive. You can clone hard drive or just copy & paste files to that disk.
• Remember to save software serial numbers. Those applications you bought will be lost after wiping your PC, and you need to reinstall them to new hard drive. Do not forget to record each program's serial number so that you can activate them after reinstallation.
• Download drivers. If you are going to reinstall operating system after hard drive is completely wiped, you may need to download necessary drivers for new system. You can go to official web site of the device and download the latest drivers.
• Prepare a bootable disk. If you are wiping computer's main hard disk, you'll have to carry out the task without booting system, such as under WinPE. In that case, a bootable USB drive or CD is needed.

Once everything gets ready, you can start erasing computer hard drive or external disks. The rest part of this instruction will show you how to erase storage device in different ways.

Method 1: Completely wipe computer by resetting your PC

This method wipes computer by using the reset feature in Windows 8.1 or 10 during reinstalling operating system, which has an option to remove everything on hard drive. This section takes Windows 10 as example to explain how to wipe computer completely. If your computer is running an older version of Windows, you can try steps in Method 2 to erase hard disk.

Step 1 Click 'Start' menu and select 'Settings' option. On Windows Settings pane click 'Update & Security' option.

Step 2 Click 'Recovery' option on the left navigation options and then click Get 'Started' button under 'Reset this PC' section.

Step 3 Select 'Remove everything' option which removes all of your personal files, apps, and settings and start over.

Step 4 Select 'Remove files and clean the drive' when you are asked to whether to clean the drives too. The cleaning process may take longer time but it makes sure no one can recover erased files.

Step 5 Click 'Next' and 'Reset' button on following steps to complete the task.

Method 2: Wipe hard drive using free hard drive eraser software

The secure way to erase data for good is overwriting data and refill hard disk using zeros or random data, so that nobody can recover wiped data with disk recovery software. Sounds complex? Actually, nowadays cleaning hard disk is not a complicated work, and you can easily and securely erase disk using disk wipe software.

Free hard drive wipe software

DiskGenius is free software for permanently data wiping. With this hard disk eraser, you can wipe all data on by filling disk sector by sector, making files unrecoverable. Besides, it is a free partition manager program which is able to resize, format, clone or backup partition, check &repair bad sectors, backup data, etc. Here are features of disk wiping function:

• Completely erase data on an entire hard drive or partitionŸPermanently delete certain existing files so that they cannot be recovered.
• Safely wipe deleted data without affecting existing files.
• Supports creating bootable USB drive so that you can use the software when computer fails to boot.ŸSupports all popular file systems such as NTFS, FAT32, FAT16, FAT12, exFAT, Ext2, Ext3, Ext4, etc.
• It works with various storage media for example hard drive, external HDD, SSD, USB flash drive, SD card, virtual disk, etc.
• Portable version is available, both 32 bit and 64 bit.

The following content introduces how to erase data in difference situations, and you can choose which to use in line with actual demands, for instance, you want to clear an SD card or other removable devices, Case 1 is the proper solution; if you want to wipe computer, then go to Case 2.

Case 1: Safely erase external hard drive / SD card / USB flash drive

Step 1 Connect the removable device to your computer and make sure it can be recognized by Windows.

Step 2 Install and run DiskGenius from your PC and you can see all local disks and portable devices on the main interface.

Step 3 Select the external hard drive or SD card you want to erase data, and select 'Erase Sectors' option under Tools menu.

Step 4 Select items to fill disk sectors and click Erase button on the popped-up window.

There are four options to fill disk sectors in the drop-down list, i.e. Random Data, 00, FF and User Specify. You can either choose one from '00, FF and Random Data', or specify item to fill disk.

Step 5 DiskGenius asks confirmation for the action, click Erase button to continue.

Since the process wipes data permanently, you should make sure you are erasing correcting disk and important files have been backed up.

Step 6 The disk eraser starts wiping data on selected drive and the process may take long time if the disk has very large capacity.

Case 2: How to wipe computer system hard drive

In this example, you can learn how to wipe a computer's main hard drive where Windows is installed. Operating system does not allow to erase system while it is running, and we can only wipe non-system partitions. In this situation, we can erase the hard disk in Pre-OS environment, for example Windows PE.

DiskGenius is able to reboot to its WinPE version directly from Windows as well as creating bootable USB disk with which you can boot computer and run the WinPE version. If you want to create a bootable WinPE USB stick, you can insert your USB flash drive and click Tools menu and select 'Create WinPE bootable USB drive of DiskGenius'. The following steps show how to reboot computer to WinPE version directly and then erase system disk.

Step 1 Launch the free disk wipe tool DiskGenius from your Windows computer.

Step 2 Click menu 'File' and choose 'Reboot to DiskGenius WinPE version' option.

Step 3 It takes about two minutes to create booting information for Windows PE, please wait it to complete with patience.

Step 4 Once the application is ready to reboot, it prompts to restart and backup data. Click 'OK' button and computer reboots.

Then the DiskGenius WinPE version is launched, which contains same features with the Windows version.

Step 5 Select computer's system hard drive where Windows is installed and click 'Erase Sectors' option which can be found under Tools menu.

Step 6 Click Erase button and the software starts wiping the disk.

Note: Once the process finishes, the computer cannot boot to system, as system partition have been erased. You need to make a clean system installation on the hard disk.

Case 3: Wipe a single file or folder on hard drive

Erasing an entire hard drive takes too much time, and you don't have to do that if you just want to erase certain existing files on the disk. On account that deleting files by emptying Recycle Bin does not wipe data complete, we should do extra operation to make files unrecoverable. Files deleted in this way cannot be recovered by any recovery software or professionals. Let's have a close look at how to wipe files and folders:

Step 1 Launch DiskGenius again, and locate files you want to permanently delete. Select those files and right-click them to choose 'Delete Files Permanently'.

Step 2 Click 'Permanently Delete' button on the popped-up window.

In order to completely delete the file, the application will refill hard drive sectors taken by the file during deletion. By default, it overwrites data by filling zeros which can be modified to random data as well. Besides, you should select 'Delete Directory Entry' option on FAT partition (and the option will be 'Delete File Record in $MFT' on NTFS partition).

Step 3 Click 'Delete' button to confirm the action to be done.

When selected files get deleted, you can continue to delete other data on your computer.

Case 4: Erase deleted files only without affecting existing data

Erasing free space on hard drive overwrites lost files, which does not disturb existing files on the disk. This solution applies to those who just want to overwrite lost files only in order to make lost data unrecoverable. For instance, you've formatted hard drive and reinstalled operating system, what you need to do is erasing all disk area except system; or you've deleted sensitive using Shift + Delete, and want to make sure they are no longer recoverable without affecting existing data.

Step 1 Start Eassos DiskGenius, click 'Tools' menu and select 'Erase Free Space' item.

This function permanently erases unused free disk space, preventing data from being recovered.

Step 2 Select partition / disk for which you want to erase free space and click 'OK' button.

Step 3 Select characters to overwrite disk space and click 'Erase' button.

Step 4 The application starts cleaning unused disk space, which takes long time if free space is very larger.

Method 3: Clean PC hard drive by physically destroying it

Physically destroying a hard drive is also a solution to ensure data is forever unrecoverable. If you are not going to reuse or recycle your hard drive, you can try this solution to clean data.

Step 1 Use a screwdriver to remove all screws on the hard drive case. Then you'll be able to remove enclosure and the main circuit board.

Step 2 Remove platters and heads out of hard drive enclosure, and use a hammer to hit platters. Then repeatedly strike other components.

Step 3 Box up all components and throw them to garbage can.

Summary

This article talks about three methods to wipe a computer, hard drive or removable disk, helping to make sure sensitive data can be erased safely and completely. Files erased by these methods is no longer available for data recovery, thus please make sure important files have been backed up before erasing any storage media. If you feel this article useful, please share it to help more people. If you have better solutions or any questions about this topic, please feel free to contact us.

July 13, 2020

You want to donate or recycle your old computer gear, but there’s something you have to do first — wipe your hard drive. That means clearing out all your personal information.

You may think that’s not a lot of stuff, but your old devices probably hold a ton of information. Your medical records, browser history, login info for your bank account, past emails — all that information about you that accumulates on a device.

It’s not enough to simply delete old files. Why? The delete button doesn’t actually delete.

Your personal information will be retrievable on a computer’s hard drive unless you take steps to wipe the hard drive clean. If you don’t, the files are there for the taking. Anyone with recovery software and bad intentions could access them and put your privacy and the security of your personal information at risk.

How to completely wipe a hard drive

Follow these steps to ensure you’re truly wiping your hard drive clean. They’ll help keep you from passing on or losing your documents, photos, passwords, financial information, and personal data when you say goodbye to your old device.

Step 1: Back up your hard-drive data

Before you wipe your computer’s hard drive or do a factory reset, make sure to back up all of your information to your new computer, an external hard drive, or a web service.

Backing up your data regularly is a smart way to keep your data safe. Hard drives can crash, get lost, stolen, or encrypted by ransomware software. The best defense is to make sure all the data is backed up safely and frequently.

You can back up your data on thumb drives or USB flash drives. But keep in mind these are small storage devices and may not accommodate all the data from your PC. External hard drives can offer more storage. You can also transfer your data to another laptop or PC.

“Cloud backs” are another option. They’re safe and one of the most convenient ways to store data. Here’s how it works.

First, you create an account and complete the initial setup. Next, you enable the storage of your data to the cloud — a network of remote servers. There’s no physical location for the backed-up data. So the risk of it getting stolen or destroyed by things like floods or fires is mitigated. Plus, the files are encrypted. That makes it difficult for cybercriminals to access or steal your information.

The importance of data backup

It’s a good idea to make backing up data a part of your cyber hygiene. If you happen to lose your data due to a hardware defect or ransomware attack, having a backup could be the respite you’re looking for.

Step 2: Don’t just delete files from your computer

You might think moving your documents to the trash or recycle bin and emptying it will do the trick. Maybe not. This action appears to delete the files, but often leaves them where they were, hidden from view. Most data recovery programs can actually recover these hidden files.

Here’s why. When you empty files from the trash or recycle bin, the file name or the reference to the deleted file is erased. The computer can no longer see the file.

This means the space the file took up on the laptop or PC is no longer reserved for that file. But the file is still in the hard drive. It will stay in the hard drive until its location is given up for a new file to be stored in that exact location.

Data recovery software is capable of rebuilding the file header. This makes it possible for the computer to see the file again.

Here’s the risk. When your files are not deleted completely from the hard drive, cybercriminals can run data recovery software to access your deleted files.

Law enforcement agencies use data recovery software to access deleted files from confiscated computers. Cybercriminals can use the same tools and techniques to commit identity theft.

Step 3: Use a program to wipe your drive

Special software programs can permanently erase your hard drive. There’s little chance you can get any data back. Similarly, no one else will be able to use data recovery software to recover your files.

Most programs run a low-level format that overwrites all the deleted files with zeros and other incomprehensible data. This makes it impossible for data recovery software to recover the files.

DBAN is a free data destruction program* that completely erases files on a hard drive. This includes all personal files, operating systems, and installed programs.

It’s smart to use a program to wipe your device. Most products offer proof of erasure. Some even provide information about what was done to the drive and its data. This helps when wiping a company laptop or PC.

Step 4: Physically wipe your hard drive

If you want to double-ensure your hard drive is wiped, you can take additional measures. For instance, you can physically wipe the drive. Just remove your hard drive and take a rare earth magnet to it. Another option? Physically dismantle it with a screwdriver.

A rare earth magnet, like the neodymium magnet, can be used to deform the metal plates in the hard disk. This makes it unusable. One warning: The magnets are powerful and can cause physical harm if used incorrectly.

A safer method might be using a screwdriver to dismantle the pieces of the hard drive to make it useless.

Step 5: Do a fresh installation of the operating system

There’s another way to completely rewrite over the whole hard drive. That’s by completing a clean installation of the original operating system that came with the computer. This can be especially important if you’re giving the device to someone like a friend or family member.

What are the risks of not wiping my hard drive?

As the line between the real world and digital world blurs, it’s smart to understand how cybercriminals work. A security product like Norton Security Premium helps protect your personal PC files, financial information and your family’s devices. But when you discard your device without properly wiping the hard drive, you run the risk of losing your data.

Cybercriminals value your personal data — such as your email address, passwords, Social Security number, driver’s license details, and credit card information. They could sell the information on the dark web.

Cybercriminals can buy the information and launch cyberattacks to commit other kinds of crimes like identity theft and extortion. They could open bank accounts in your name, purchase items with your credit card information, or take out loans and default on them, leaving you with the consequences.

Thieves also look for private and confidential information. This may include non-disclosure agreements, personal photographs, private chat conversations, and other details you may not want to expose. If a hard drive wasn’t wiped clean, cybercriminals could retrieve this information to blackmail the owner of the content.

Types of data deletion

No matter what kind of data you had on your computer before you decided to donate or recycle it, it pays to play it safe.

Remember, deleting your files from the recycle bin or trash doesn’t mean the file is gone from your device. It only means its location is available. Data recovery software can easily find those files in your hard drive.

Here are a few ways to wipe your hard drive like the pros and avoid the risk of someone accessing your old data.

1. DBAN

Short for Darik’s Boot and Nuke, DBAN* uses a random number generator that wipes and overwrites everything on the drive several times. Every file that has been deleted now has the new number assigned to it. This makes it impossible for data recovery tools to access it. This tool is useful if you plan to sell, donate, or recycle your computer or laptop.

2. Destroy the hard drive

A sure way to completely destroy the hard drive is to make it physically impossible to access the disks. This can be done by dismantling the pieces of the hard disk with a screwdriver and using a hammer to scratch and mangle the disk. The goal is to make sure the disk will not work when it is loaded into another hard drive. A powerful rare earth magnet can also be used to destroy the platter in the hard drive.

How Norton Utilities can help wipe your hard drive

Your PC is likely packed with personal files. It’s wise to keep all that information secure and private. Norton Utilities is a handy tool that keeps your PC running like new. It fixes common issues that slow down or crash your PC. It also frees up space by finding duplicate files and unused applications.

It’s commonplace to store personal files on your PC. Now it’s easy to keep your digital life private. Safely dispose of personal documents, so no one can access them. Think of it as a digital shredder. Norton Utilities helps keep what you do on your computer private. It can permanently erase all record of your computer and web-based activities to help protect your privacy.

Hard Drive Eraser Free

It also safely disposes of personal documents permanently and renders them inaccessible. Most of all, it maintains your digital privacy by erasing your recently opened files and website browsing history.

There’s a lot you can do to help protect your personal information if you take the right steps before disposing of your old computer.

Disclaimers and references:

* The inclusion of websites, links, or programs here does not imply endorsement or support of any companies, materials, products and/or providers listed herein.

Hard Drive Eraser Mac

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