Is there any free hard drive wipe software? Here, we will display 10 practical tools to erase data on your hard drive and make it irrecoverable.
Due to different reasons, you may want to sell out your old computer or hard drive, but you are afraid that your personal data on the hard drive may be leaked out. So, what to do before selling your PC? You may think about formatting or deleting those data first.
However, these ways are not safe and efficient enough to fulfill your requirement. You may believe that you have already erased all the data on your computer by formatting or deleting operation, but the data on the hard drive can be retrieved easily with some professional data recovery software at any time!
So what the problem is? Actually, you have never erased data but made it invisible on the computer.
So in the next part, we'll recommend 10 useful free hard drive wipe software, wiping the data on HDD, SSD, SD card, USB, etc. You can choose the suitable one for yourself, then you can randomly handle your old hard disk.
To protect all the information on your PC, finding a reliable free hard drive wipe software is necessary. Read on, here are 10 disk wipers displayed.
AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard is a functional disk manager for Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP, it can easily and effectively wipe the hard drive. Depending on the user-friendly guidance, it won't cost much energy to learn to wipe a hard drive.
In a bright GUI, whether the device is SSD, HDD, SD card, USB or others, you can easily wipe data on it with a few clicks. The wiped data cannot be recovered by any professional data recovery software.
Besides, this freeware also has other useful functions, such as Merge Partitions, Clone Partition, Change drive letter, and so on.
Please download this hard drive wipe software for free to see how it works.
Warning: ♦ Before your operation, please backup the important data. ♦ Due to the different storage methods of HDD and SSD, you cannot directly erase SSD with "Wipe Hard Drive", because the function will impact on the life of SSD. If you want to erase your SSD permanently, you can try SSD Secure Erase feature.
Step 1. Install and open AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. Right click the disk you want to wipe and then choose "Wipe Hard Drive".
Step 2. You can see four methods in the window ejected, choose "Fill sectors with Zero (Safe, Quick)".
Notes: You can upgrade to AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional to try other 3 methods to wipe the hard drive: ☞ Fill sectors with random data (Safe, Quick): It overwrites the hard drive with random data. It is safer than Fill sectors with Zero. ☞ DoD 5220.22-M (Very Safe, Slow): It is much more secure than Fill sectors with Zero and Fill sectors with random data to use DoD to wipe hard drive. Besides, it’s faster than the Gutmann. So it is widely used in the military, IT industry and other fields. ☞ Gutmann (35 passes, Very Safe, Very Slow): Gutmann is an algorithm to securely erase the data of hard drives. Although it is the safest method for wiping hard disk data, it takes a long time than the other three methods.
Step 3. Click "Apply" to skip the pending operation and then click "Proceed" to commit the operation.
Shortcoming: You need to endure the always popped Upgrading prompt.
DBAN is an open-source disk wiping tool, it can be used on Windows 10/8/7. This freeware supports wiping the hard drives with some advanced methods, such as Random data and DoD 5220.22-M.
The whole process of wiping a hard disk will be shown, so it can provide the users with the most reliability.
Shortcomings:
1. The interface is as complex as the CMD.
2. You need to burn its ISO image to a USB, CD or DVD, then run it when restarting the system.
KillDisk is also a reliable disk wipe freeware, you can easily wipe all data from the HDD/SSD in a clear interface, whether it's external or internal. This tool can be used on Windows 11/10/8/7/Vista/XP.
It can erase multiple disks at the same time. Besides, it also supports PDF Certificates exports, emailing results, reports customization, etc.
Shortcoming:This tool has two versions: the free version and the advanced version, many operations are limited in the free version.
CCleaner is known for its ability to clean up the PC. In fact, this tool can also wipe an SSD or HDD. You can choose more than one drive and then continuously wipe them. It provides the methods including DoD 5220.22-M, Gutmann, Schneier and Write Zero.
Shortcomings:
1. It may carry some ads, sometimes even viruses.
2. You cannot wipe the system drive, since this tool is stored on it.
WipeDisk is a portable disk wiping utility, it wipes all the data drives on your hard drive. After choosing the target drive and the method, you can quickly finish the wiping task. If you boot from the USB or CD, you can wipe the system drive.
Shortcoming: There's no detailed guidance or pictures to help you.
CBL Data Shredder can be regarded as a good partner for wiping a hard disk. You can directly download it on a Windows PC, and you can also run it with a CD or USB. You can try various wiping methods, such as RMCP DSX, Gutmann, DoD 5220.22-M, etc.
Shortcoming: No user-friendly wizard provided.
Secure Eraser is a disk-wiping software suite, it can serve the HDD, SSD and USB. It provides the users with DoD 5220.22-M, Gutmann, Random Data, and VSITR methods to wipe the target hard drive.
Shortcoming: It doesn't support wiping a system drive.
Remo Drive Wipe is a disk wipe freeware designed for Windows PC, by following the guidance, you can choose the method and then successfully wipe the target disk.
Eraser is an easy-to-use tool, it aims to wipe your PC hard drive (both the HDD and SSD). It can be used on Windows 11/10/9/8/7/Vista and even Windows Server. Besides, many disk-wiping ways are provided: DoD 5220.22-M, AFSSI-5020, RCMP TSSIT OPS-II, VSITR, Gutmann, and so on.
Shortcoming: It cannot be used to wipe a hard drive with Windows OS.
MHDD is a data destruction utility for the hard drive, it can safely wipe your SSD or HDD. You can get this freeware in more than one way. Besides, it produces lots of posts, FAQs, and a forum for its users.
Some users may would like to use the Windows built-in tool to erase the data on the hard disk, the Command Prompt can meet their requirements. Please follow the steps below:
Step 1. Click the Search tip on the taskbar and input "cmd" in the search box. Right-click "cmd" and select Run as administrator.
Step 2. Type format g: /fs:NTFS /p:0 and press Enter. Then you can change the drive letter and file system within your expectation. (The "g:" mentioned above refers to drive letters of the partition on a hard drive.)
Step 3. Type "y" and press Enter to erase data. Wait for several minutes of formatting operation.
Step 4. Repeat the mentioned steps for other partitions on this hard drive.
Step 5. Type "exit" and press Enter to quit the Command Prompt.
Notes: ✍ Formatting a hard drive may cost a long time. The length of time would depend on the size of the hard drive. ✍ You shouldn't worry about the speed of the operation that it doesn't reach 1 percent for several seconds or even several minutes.
Look, if you want to erase data on a hard drive, you get top 10 free hard drive wipe software from this post. Please choose the most suitable for you.