How to Erase WD My Passport External Hard Drive in Windows

Quick Navigation:

• Why to erase WD Passport external hard drive?

• How to erase WD My Passport external hard drive in Windows easily?

• - Solution 1. erase WD My Passport with WD Drive Utilities

• - Solution 2. erase WD My Passport via advanced third-party software

• Verdict

Why to erase WD Passport external hard drive?

When it comes to external hard drives, many users choose WD My Passport because of the rapid transfer rates and compact appearance design. Besides, WD My Passport hard drives are built in with backup and encryption software which helps to ensure your data safety.

After a long-time use, you may want to erase a WD Passport external hard drive for following reasons:

 -Erase data so as to sell the drive without leaking your personal information. It is safer to erase a hard drive than to format a hard drive because the data is recoverable with special tools after formatting while it’s unrecoverable after erasing.

 -Erase data and format the drive in order to use it on other devices like a Mac. Apart from WD Passport, you can also format WD Elements for Mac.

Then, how to erase WD My Passport external hard drive easily?

How to erase WD My Passport external hard drive in Windows easily?

Here I’m going to show you two effective solutions to erase WD external hard drives in Windows:

▶ Solution 1. Erase WD My Passport with WD Drive Utilities

WD Drive Utilities is the software provided by WD which allows users to register the drive, set drive timer, run diagnostics as well as perform a Drive Erase. Learn how to erase a WD external hard drive with WD Drive Utilities below:

1. Connect WD My Passport to your computer. Download, install and launch WD Drive Utilities.

2. Once WD Drive Utilities is running, click on the Drive Erase option.

3. Read the warning message and check the I Understand checkbox. Then, click on the Erase Drive button below to begin erasing the drive.

4. A notification will be displayed when the process has finished. Safely disconnect your WD My Passport drive.

▶ Solution 2. Erase WD My Passport via advanced third-party software

As mentioned in WD Support Site, only some WD external drives can be erased with WD Drive Utilities. What if the erasing process fails? In this case, you can turn to advanced third-party software—AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional.

It owns the ability to erase SSDs of various brands, including Samsung, SanDisk, Crucial and of course WD. It makes the erasing process especially simple by providing the “SSD Secure Erase Wizard”. However, the wizard is only usable in Windows 7, so you will need a computer running Windows 7 before you can enjoy the feature. Learn how to erase a Western Digital external hard drive via AOMEI Partition Assistant below:

Step 1. Connect WD My Passport internally via SATA port on the Windows 7 computer.

Step 2. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant. Right-click on the WD My Passport and select “SSD Secure Erase”.

Step 3. Choose the disk you are going to erase from the list and click “Next”.

Step 4. Check the SSD identification information again in case of erasing a wrong SSD. You will see the SSD is in a frozen state. To continue, you need to perform a hot swap.

*To perform a hot swap:

✦ First, open computer case (rear cover or drive shell) and find the SSD to be erased.

✦ Second, unplug the power cable and then disconnect the SATA data cable from SSD.

✦ Third, after a few seconds, reconnect the SATA cable to the SATA port on the SSD and then plug the power cable back to finish the hot swap.

Step 5. Click “Next” to start the SSD Secure Erase.

Step 6. When the SSD drive is erased successfully, click “Finish”. Safely disconnect your WD My Passport drive.

Once the wipe operation is carried out by AOMEI Partition Assistant, the data cannot be recovered by any data recovery software. Please do file backup for your crucial data before erasing the drive.

Verdict

Now you know how to erase WD My Passport external hard drive in Windows easily. Both WD Drive Utilities and AOMEI Partition Assistant can help you with the task. Compared with WD Drive Utilities, AOMEI Partition Assistant is compatible with more hard drives. In addition to erasing SSDs, it enables you to clone bootable USB drive to another USB drive and remove write protection on micro SD card Samsung. Try it now to discover more!