How to Wipe A Hard Drive Without Deleting Windows 11, 10, 8, And 7

It is a common phenomenon to wipe the hard drive while keeping the Windows system because reinstalling Windows can waste a lot of time and effort. Do you know if it is possible to wipe out a hard drive without deleting Windows or how to wipe a hard drive without deleting Windows? Please read on.

Can you wipe your hard drive with Windows on it without removing it?

First, the answer is yes. You can erase your hard drive while keeping Windows 11/10/8/7. Usually, when we need tosell the computer the computer should be wiped completely while keeping Windows. When the user reuses the harddisk, the hard disk needs to be erased to free up space, remove viruses, and so on. The following part will show youhow to wipe a hard drive without deleting Windows.

How to wipe a hard drive without deleting Windows - 2 ways

Here are two methods for you to choose to wipe a hard drive permanently, the first method is to use Windows built-in tools to reset the Pc, and the second method is to wipe the partition through powerful third-party software. You can choose a method that works best for you.

▶ Way 1. Reset this PC to wipe hard drive without deleting Windows

Resetting this PC in Windows 10 returns the computer to its default state and deletes everything. This feature is actually derived from Refresh your PC in Windows 8. It wipes the hard drive before reinstalling Windows and overwrites the remaining data by writing zeros to the hard drive.

In Windows 10, you can access it by 2 methods:

>> If you can log on to Windows 10: Start > Settings > Update & Security > Recovery Reset this PC
>> If you want to wipe a hard drive without logging in: Enter Windows 10 recovery mode via installation disc > Select language and region > Next > Repair your computer > Troubleshot > Reset this PC

Step 1. After selecting it to start, you can select Remove Everything on the next page to clear all personal files, applications and settings from your hard drive.

Step 2. Then select Fully Clean the Drive.

Step 3. Make sure and click Reset.

Resetting this PC is a relatively safe method of erasing in Windows 10, but it's not the safest method. If you want to ensure that sensitive data will never be recovered, or if you are wiping a hard drive from Windows 7, you need a reliable hard drive wiper - AOMEI Partition Assistant.

▶ Way 2. Using freeware to wipe a hard drive without deleting Windows

Resetting this PC is a relatively safe method of erasing in Windows 10, but it's not the safest method. lf you want to ensure that sensitive data will never be recovered, or if you are wiping a hard drive from Windows 7, then you need are liable hard drive wiper, such as AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard.

This is a free all-in-one disk partition manager. lts Delete Partition feature can delete the partition and permanently erase all information and data by the zero-padding method. To wipe a hard drive without removing Windows, you can delete other partitions in sequence except the system partition. Download and install the software and follow these steps:

Warning:
● Before erasing, you can clone the hard drive to another HDD/SSD to back up the data you need.
● If you need to completely delete data on a solid-state drive, it offers the“Secure Erase SSD” feature that is specialized for SSD in terms of the structure of SSD.

Step 1. After downloading and installing it, right-click on a data partition and choose “Delete Partition” from the drop-down menu.

Step 2. And choose “Delete Partition and wipe data on it” And tick “Fil Sector with Zero”.

Upgrade to the Professional Version to try 3 other methods:
✍ Fill sectors with random data: wipe the partition and overwrite existing contents with random data.
✍ DoD 5220.22-M: Overwrite all addressable locations with binary zeroes firstly; secondly with binary ones; thirdly with a random bit pattern.
✍ Gutmann: Overwrite the partition with a random character for the first 4 and the last 4 passes and overwrite from pass 5 through pass 31 with a complex pattern.

Step 3. Then, delete the partitions you need one by one until the end. Finally, click "Apply" to generate the action.

AOMEI Partition Assistant is a full-featured tool to manage hard drive and computers. With this tool, you can get better performance:

• If you want to wipe the entire data disk permanently, you can try the Wipe Hard Drive feature.
• If you want to do a fresh installation of Windows, you can use create installation media using the Media Creation Tool.
• If you want to upgrade your hard disk, the Clone Disk feature allows you to copy all your files and programs.
• If your computer gets a boot error, you can rebuild the MBR or check the disk.

Download AOMEI Partition Assistant and enjoy more of its useful and advanced features.

Conclusion

This is the whole process of how to wipe a hard drive without deleting Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, Vista, and XP. In comparison, AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard is the most effective method. After erasing all partitions, you can also use it to create partitions.

Last but not least, if you need to wipe a hard drive on Windows Server, you should switch to Server Edition which is designed for Windows Server 2022, 2019, 2016, 2012(R2), 2008(R2), and 2003 users.