If you want to wipe files or volumes securely, you can download the free Eraser program tool, which can help securely shred files in Windows operating system.
Sometimes, you might need to clean data off your old drives to protect your sensitive data against identity thefts. Simply deleting the files off your hard drive does not actually delete it; it basically just hides it from immediate view. To permanently remove them, you had better overwrite the drive space with ones and zeros. For this reason, the Eraser tool was introduced.
The Eraser is an open source secure file eraser tool, compatible with the Windows operating system. It can help Windows users to wipe both file and volume. It will erase data from your hard disk by overwriting it several times so that the data cannot be recovered using special data recovery software. It supports several data destruction standards, including British HMG IS5, American DoD 5220.22-M, and the Gutmann method which features a 35-pass overwrite.
1. Download the Eraser program, double click the installer and install it on your computer.
2. When the installation is finished, you will get the Eraser shortcut on your desktop.
3. To delete the specific file, just right-click the file, hover over Eraser and click on “Erase”.
4. Click “Yes” to confirm that you want to erase the selected file or folder.
5. When the file deletion task is completed, you will receive a notification.
To erase a folder or volume, same as the above steps, just right click it and follow the prompts. Or, you can double click the Eraser icon on your desktop, and get into the main console like the screenshot below. Here, you can see the default file erasure method is Gutmann (35 passes), and the default drive erasure method is Pseudorandom data (1 pass). And you can click the “Add File...” or “Add Folder...” option to add the target item you want to remove from your drive.
Above are the brief introduction of Eraser and how to use that program to delete files. Now we also want to share you with another more powerful file eraser tool: AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. In addition to erasing files, folders and volumes, this free software is also capable of wiping an entire hard drive. Besides, it will zero fill the hard drive, partition, files or folders to prevent data recovery. You can free download the file shredder and refer to the specific steps of deleting files.
Step 1. Install and run AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. Click “Wipe” on the upper pane and choose “Shred Files”.
Step 2. In the “Shred Files” window, you can choose “Add Files” or “Add Folder” option to add the target files or folders.
Step 3. Then pick the target item, or you can directly drag and drop them into this window.
Step 4. Then you can see all selected items in the “Name” list. If you want to remove one or more files from the list, just untick it. You can move the mouse on the file or folder path and double click it to open the files or folder.
Step 5. When the files are confirmed correctly, now you have to choose the shredding method: “Write Zero”.
To choose another three file shredding or deleting methods, please upgrade to Professional edition.
Step 6. Then click on the “Shred” button and click “Yes” to confirm this operation and start to delete files.
Step 7. When this task is completed, the message saying “All files/folders have been shredded completely” will appear on the top.
This is how to shred a file or folder step by step. If you want to wipe all data from a partition or a whole hard disk, you can right-click the partition or hard drive and select “Wipe Partition” or “Wipe Hard Drive”. To erase an SSD drive, you have to switch to the AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional edition.
Here, you must have gotten a basic understanding of Eraser program, and known another great file shredder software. The AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard is far more than a file eraser for Windows users. It also comes with many other amazing features: copy partition, clone disk (HDD/SSD), migrate OS to SSD with secure boot, merge partitions, convert MBR and GPT without deleting partitions and more.