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How to Completely Wipe a Hard Drive on Windows
If you plan to sell or donate your hard drive, you must wipe it completely to remove personal data. This might also be necessary if you wish to use a second-hand drive or remove malware. I'll share two easy methods to help you permanently purge a drive in Windows.
The Easy Way to Wipe a Hard Drive in Windows
Before trying out third-party tools, you can utilize the Format command in Windows to delete the hard drive data permanently. This method is helpful if you want to wipe a second storage drive (on which Windows isn't installed) or an external hard drive.
It won't help you completely wipe the system drive (C drive) because it contains the core files. DBAN and other third-party tools can help you with it, which I'll explain after this method.
Before proceeding, find the correct letter for the drive you wish to erase using Windows File Explorer or Disk Management. Otherwise, you'll delete something you didn't intend to.
You'll need to launch and use Windows PowerShell, a command line tool to input text-based instructions. You can search for PowerShell using Windows Search. The command you're going to use follows this syntax:
Format volume /P:passesIn the above command, replace volume with the drive letter and passes with the number of times you want Windows to overwrite each sector of the drive.
So, if your drive letter is X: and you wanted five passes of formatting, you would need to enter the following command:
Format X: /P:5It's as simple as that. This process will take longer (even multiple hours) to complete, depending on the size of the drive.
How to Totally Wipe a Hard Drive With DBAN
What if you want to destroy the data on your C: drive? Windows' built-in formatting tool cannot help you with that. While several third-party tools are available, I recommend Darik's Boot and Nuke (DBAN).
DBAN is excellent for deleting all data in one go. The tool runs in your computer's memory, much like a recovery drive or a Linux live disk, and removes all data traces.
DBAN's free version is fully capable of deleting your HDD. So, you can ignore the premium version on its site and follow the instructions below.
If you have some personal data, now's the time to back it up on an external hard disk drive or a cloud backup service like OneDrive.
1. Identify Your Hard Drive
To avoid accidental erasure, start by ensuring you can identify your HDD. The easy way to do this is to open File Explorer and check the C: drive. As long the device is labeled something like Local Disk (C:) or Windows (C:), you're in the right area.
However, problems can arise if the C: drive is one of several, and they're all partitions on the same physical drive. This could result in inadvertently overwriting data on all partitions, not just the C: drive.
Right-click the drive letter and select Properties > Hardware to find the hardware name of the device. Note its name because you'll need it while using DBAN.
2. Download DBAN and Create a Bootable USB Drive
DBAN is available for download as an ISO file. So, you'll need to create a bootable USB drive from an ISO with a tool like Rufus. Follow these steps:
- Download DBAN from Sourceforge. Then, download Rufus.
- Connect a USB drive to your PC and launch Rufus. It will automatically select the drive.
- Click Select. Browse your PC for the DBAN ISO file and double-click on it to select it.
- Click Start and then follow the on-screen instructions to create the bootable drive.
3. Boot Into DBAN
The DBAN free version only works with legacy BIOS and doesn't play nicely with Secure Boot. So, you must enable legacy support in BIOS settings and disable Secure Boot.
After that, restart your PC and press the designated F-key or Esc key to open the boot devices selection menu. Select the DBAN USB drive and press Enter.
4. Wipe Your Hard Drive With DBAN
You'll find several options on the DBAN screen, but you just need to follow these steps to wipe your drive:
- Press Enter to start guided mode.
- Use the arrow keys to select the device you wish to wipe.
- Press Space to flag the drive with the [wipe] flag.
- When ready, press F10 to commence the wipe process.
You'll find some keyboard shortcuts at the bottom of the screen that let you make changes to the wipe process.
- Use P to change which random number generator is used to destroy your data.
- R changes the number of passes for each disk sector. This multiplies the default passes for each available wipe method. For example, the default DoD Short has three passes by default, so using R lets you change this to nine passes by specifying a value of 3.
- M, meanwhile, gives you a choice of six erasure methods, including DoD Short, DoD 5220.22-M, and Gutmann Wipe.
- A verification mode (V) can also be enabled, although this lengthens the wipe process.
A timer in the top-right pane of the DBAN tool displays the duration of the wipe process. Eventually, a new screen should appear with "pass" highlighted in green next to the disk drive name. At this point, you're free to reuse the drive.
If the word "fail" appears instead, try using DBAN again. If this happens repeatedly, consider physical destruction.
While other tools (including some built-in options like Windows Reset) can remove the data on your hard drive, the safest option is to wipe with DBAN or a similar tool. Note that DBAN's free version only works on hard disk drives; use the manufacturer's official tool or a free utility if you want to wipe an SSD.
