How to Wipe A Hard Drive on Dell Laptop Completely

Help! How do I wipe hard drive on Dell laptop?

"As part of my warranty, I have to return the "dead" hard drive to Dell, and before doing so, I want to make sure my hard drive data is completely erased. I have tried to format it, but I am getting a secondary host failure error in the BIOS. Is there any way to wipe the drive without physically destroying it?"

Just as mentioned above, for different reasons, many users want to completely delete the data on a hard drive in their Dell computer. However, simply deleting or formatting a hard drive just make the data invisible on the PC, it can be retrieved by professional data recovery software at any time.

Therefore, it’s necessary for you to know how to wipe a hard drive on a Dell laptop permanently.

Two ways to wipe hard drive on Dell laptop

Wiping all data stored on the hard drive of a Dell laptop is of great significance in preventing information leakage. To effectively perform this task, a proper method is in requirement. Here, you can try two built-in tools to do it: Command Prompt and Disk Management.

● Wipe hard drive on Dell laptop with Command Prompt

Command Prompt is a command-line interpreter available in most Windows operating systems. It allows you to wipe data on your hard drive by typing commands. Please read the steps below to know how to wipe a dell laptop in Windows 10 with Command Prompt.

Warning: Please check the input command carefully before the operation. Once the wrong commands are executed, they will cause data loss or even have an impact on the system.

Step 1. Type "cmd" after clicking Start in Windows 10. Right-click "cmd.exe" or "command prompt" from the list and select "Run as administrator".

Step 2. Type format "g: /fs:NTFS /p:0" and press "Enter" to format the G drive with the NTFS file system. (The "g:" refers to drive letters of the partition on the hard drive.)

Step 3. Type "y" and press "Enter" to wipe the partitions one by one.

Step 4. Input "exit" and press "Enter" to close the Command Prompt.

● Wipe hard drive on Dell laptop via Disk Management

Disk Management is another built-in tool same as Command Prompt, which can help you delete or format volume on a Dell laptop.

Before you do:
☞ If an operating system is already installed on the partition you select, Delete Volume will not work.
☞ If there are logical partitions on the partition you chose, you need to delete all the logical partitions first, or the Delete Volume will be grayed out.
☞ Once the partition is deleted, it is difficult to be recovered, so please check whether there’s data on the partition that needs to be backup before you click "Yes".

Step 1. Press "Windows + R", then input "diskmgmt.msc" on the ejected window and press "Enter".

Step 2. Right-click the partitions you select and choose "Delete Volume".

Step 3. Read the popped window carefully, then click "Yes".

How to wipe hard a drive on Dell laptop permanently（recommend）

Although you can use Windows built-in Disk Management and CMD can wipe a Dell laptop's hard drive, you may meet some limitations as mentioned in the former content.

To wipe a hard drive on a Dell laptop permanently, I strongly recommend a powerful and free hard drive wiper- AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard for you. Its Wipe Hard Drive feature allows you to wipe the hard drive easily.

With the “Fill sectors with Zeros” feature, it ensures that data cannot be recovered, for every sector of the hard drive will be overwritten with binary 0 to protect your personal data. In addition, it also provides three other ways to wipe data permanently.

Please download the freeware to see how to wipe a hard drive on a Dell laptop.

Warning:
✎ Different from simply formatting a disk, wiping a hard drive will delete everything on it completely and permanently, and you will lose your data forever. Please backup your files in advance if necessary.
✎ Wipe Hard Drive is not suitable for erasing SSD, because of the different storage methods, forced erasing the SSD will shorten its life. If you want to permanently erase your SSD, you can try the SSD Secure Erase feature.

Step 1. Download and install AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. Right-click on the hard disk drive you want to wipe, and select "Wipe Hard Drive". 

Step 2. Select "Fill sectors with Zero" and click "OK".

Step 3. Click "Apply" to commit this operation.

Notes:
✍ 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 securer than Fill sectors with Zero and Fill sectors with random data to use DoD to wipe the hard drive. It is widely used in the military, IT industry and other fields, because it’s faster than the Gutmann.
✍ Gutmann (35 passes, Very Safe, Very Slow)： Gutmann is the safest method for wiping hard disk data, but it takes a longer time than the other three methods.

Conclusion

After reading this article, I believe you have known how to wipe a hard drive on a Dell laptop, and selected the easiest method AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard by comparison. Besides, if you need to wipe the hard drive or partition on your Windows Server system, you can use AOMEI Partition Assistant Server.