How to Completely Erase a Hard Disk Drive

Submitted by Srikanth on Thursday, 8 January 200912 Comments

A new year has begun and perhaps you have decided to perform a system upgrade or get rid of your old computer system and purchase a new one.But before you sell or donate your old computer, it is very much necessary to completely erase your Hard Disk Drive.Yes, every one of us are aware of this fact and so, we delete the contents of the hard disk either by using the DELETE key on our keyboard or by Formatting the hard disk.

Deleting and Formatting – Just Not Secure Enough

But the fact is, the data will still be on the hard disk even after deleting it or formatting the hard disk. Using the delete key on your keyboard will only remove the shortcuts to the files making them invisible to users. Deleted files still reside on the hard drive and a quick Google search will show many options for system recovery software will allow anyone to reinstate that data.

Formatting the hard drive is a bit more secure way to erase the hard disk. Formatting a disk will not erase the data on the disk, only the address tables. It makes it much more difficult to recover the files. However a computer specialist would be able to recover most or all the data that was on the disk before the reformat. For those who accidentally reformat a hard disk, being able to recover most or all the data that was on the disk is a good thing. However, if you’re preparing a system for retirement to charity or any other organization, this obviously makes you more vulnerable to data theft.

Erasing the Hard Disk through DISK WIPING

So it is necessary for us to use a 100% secure way to erase the hard disk.The secure way of erasing the hard disk is called Disk Wiping.Disk wiping is a secure method of ensuring that data, including company and individually licensed software on your computer and storage devices is irrecoverably deleted before recycling or donating the equipment. Because previously stored data can be brought back with the right software and applications, the disk wiping process will actually overwrite your entire hard drive with data, several times. Once you format you’ll find it all but impossible to retrieve the data which was on the drive before the overwrite. The more times the disk is overwritten and formatted the more secure the disk wipe is.

There are a variety of disk wiping products available that you can purchase, or freely downloaded online to perform more secure disk wipes.One of my favorite disk wiping software is

WipeDrive/ WipeDrive Professional

You have to use this tool by burning the iso image file onto a CD or by using a floppy disk.After burning this tool you have to boot your PC and follow the screen instructions to completely erase the hard disk.

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12 Comments »

john said:

Dear Srikanth (author)

By seeing your above post really makes me your big fan man.

actually last month i have lost my very important data in my system actually it got deleted by me unknowingly. Now please can u help me how can i recover my lost data in my harddisk , as u said i have never booted or formatted my system after that.PLEASE HELP ME !!!

can u give me any free site where i can download the software and recover my lost data.

Thanks !

John

- 20 March 2009 at 8:07 pm

amit said:

sir,please tell me how to retrieve the data from the hard disk which get lost due to formatting.

- 29 March 2009 at 2:47 pm

Srikanth (author) said:

@ amit

Refer the following link

http://www.harddriverecovery.org/

for more info do a serach for “harddisk data recovery” on google.

- 31 March 2009 at 12:21 pm

lov said:

Another way re partetion your hard disk

- 6 May 2009 at 7:15 pm

Khurram said:

dear john i think i can help you to recover this data coz i tried to recover so many times the data. Harddrive was reformated twice but i got back that data and it works. so if u want my help then email me so i ll tell u how u can do it. thankx
waiting for your reply….
Khurram Shahab Rana
+923335564051
coamge4000@gmail.com

- 15 May 2009 at 4:46 am

DISHANT said:

Dude i would love to meet you someday.
Can you help me, how to enable task manager which is disabled.

- 23 September 2009 at 10:40 pm

gayathri said:

Hi, I ve downloaded the wiper software. Will my existing files get erased on using this software during booting?

- 19 November 2009 at 7:57 am

ashutosh said:

go to run > type gpedit.msc> in group policy> administrative templates> system> Altr ctrl del optip > you will see a option remove taskmanage desible that one

- 19 November 2009 at 7:16 pm

omes7922 said:

hey this is good but is there any free ones and if you can
wipeclean your hardrive than install an iso for example you clean your
harddrive that was xp so than you wipe clean than install windows 7

- 20 January 2010 at 9:38 am

tapan said: