How To Wipe Your Hard Drive
Some people find it hard to differentiate between ‘deleting’ and ‘wiping’ their hard drive. While deleting simply hides the files and can be retrieved using any compatible recovery software; wiping off is more permanent and requires a little more effort with the purpose that the wiped off data can never be retrieved. It requires specialized software specifically set up for that process.
How long does it take to wipe off your hard drive?
Wiping off your hard drive can take time which may vary from several minutes to hours depending upon two factors:
- The size of the data stored on the hard drive and,
- The type of software you use to wipe off the data
Ways To Wipe Off A Hard Drive
Although several ways can be used to wipe off your hard drive, the most convenient means is by using the Data Destruction Software which not only erases your data but ensures that the hard drive can be used again. Your hard drive will remain intact whenever you want to use it.
5 steps to wipe a computer hard drive – Norton
https://us.norton.com › internetsecurity-how-to-wipe-yo…
5 steps · 2 hr · Materials: External Hard Drive, Cloud Storage, DBAN – Darik’s Boot and
How to Wipe the Hard Drive of a Windows Computer – Best Buy
https://www.bestbuy.com › … › Geek Squad Tech Tips
Wipe the hard drive. … When the boot screen loads up, press Enter and choose M to get to the method screen. From here you can choose the type of wipe to perform …
How to Wipe a Hard Drive – Lifewire
https://www.lifewire.com › … › HDD & SSD Connect the drive to your computer, open File Explorer > This PC, and select theexternal drive. Right-click and select Format, click a file …
If you want that private information or secretly buried forever, then simply follow the steps below:
- First, you should decide if you want to create a back-up of any of the files from your data since after wiping off your hard drive, your data is non-retrievable.
- Next, you must download any free data destruction software. (the most popularly used wiping software is DBAN)
- Once you have downloaded the software, follow the prompts given to install the wiping software. If you have downloaded a bootable software such as DBAN, you must burn the ISO picture on a CD, DVD or an external data cable
- Once you have installed the software, follow the instructions given by the software to wipe off your hard drive
- The moment the wiping process has been completed, you can sleep in peace that all your data has been removed forever and can never be retrieved.
- When the wiping process has successfully been done, you can now download new Windows on your hard drive, reuse the hard drive or maybe even sell it.
