How to Secure Wipe Hard Drive with Freeware in Windows 11/10/8/7

Why need to wipe my hard drive？

“I plan to delete all files and folders on my hard drive to remove all data. But I was told that this way won’t erase data indeed and the data can be easily recovered. Then, how can I wipe hard drive data completely? Is there any free and secure disk wipe utility recommended?"

Wiping your hard drive is important for data security, privacy Compliance, and efficiency. Merely deleting files or formatting them is not enough. When selling or disposing of your computer, wiping helps protect personal information. Compliance with regulations is important. It avoids legal issues related to data disposal. Additionally, restarting improves system performance by eliminating clutter. In the end, wiping your hard drive guarantees peace of mind. Protect your privacy and maintain data integrity.

How to secure wipe hard drive for free

You can’t make data destruction totally simply through deleting files or formatting hard drive partition. To get rid of hard drive data completely, you can turn to Command Prompt or a third-party GUI hard drive wipe freeware, AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard.

A. Securely erase hard drive via Command Prompt

If you are unwilling to employ third-party software, you can use Command Prompt to secure wipe hard drive free, and prevent data from being recovered easily.

Step 1. Click the Search button on the taskbar and type “cmd” in the search box. Right-click the program and select “Run as administrator”.

Step 2. In this screen, type “format g:/fs:NTFS/p:1 ” and press Enter to wipe your hard drive.

▶ Notes:
☞ “g” is the drive letter assigned to the hard drive partition that you want to wipe.
☞ A single pass of zeros to a hard drive can prevent all software-based file recovery apps from retrieving information. To be more secure, you can replace “p:1” with "p:2" to perform two passes of zeros to hard drive.

B. Securely wipe hard drive with a GUI freeware for Windows

If it’s a little bit complicated for you to wipe hard drive free via Command Prompt. You can turn to a third-party disk wiping software for Windows 10/8.1/8/7, XP, and Vista – AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. It has a modern & concise graphic user interface, enabling you to handle it effortlessly.

❈ It allows you to wipe an entire hard drive or wipe a specific individual partition completely.
❈ It is featured with Make Bootable Media function, allowing you to create a Windows bootable media and wipe a hard drive that contains OS.
❈ It can work on hard drives from different brands, such as Seagate, Western Digital, Toshiba, etc.

Now, it’s time to free download it and have a closer look at how to wipe hard drive totally.

Step 1. Install and run this freeware. On the home interface, right-click the hard drive that you need to securely wipe and choose Wipe Hard Drive. 

Step 2. In the pop-up windows, choose the first way to wipe hard drive and click OK.

✍: You can upgrade to Professional version, if you want to employ the other three wiping methods:
✎ Fill sectors with random data: write random data to every sector on a hard drive and make it more difficult to retrieve data for recovery software.
✎ DoD 5220.22-M (3 passes): a software-based wiping method, is more powerful than the first two options.
✎ Gutmann(35 passes): It can prevent all software-based file recovery software and most hardware-based file recovery software from recovering data. And it is much safer than other methods

Step 3. You’ll return to the main interface where you can preview the operation result. Click Apply and Proceed if you are satisfied. 

Note: Hard drive erasing will result in data loss. It is suggested to perform a cloud backup or local backup on crucial files before you start.

FAQs

Can you permanently wipe a hard drive?

Yes, you can permanently wipe a hard drive to ensure that the data stored on it cannot be recovered. This process involves overwriting all the data on the drive with random data multiple times, making it nearly impossible to retrieve the original information. 

What is the best program to wipe free disk space?

AOMEI Partition Assistant is a simple tool that can wipe data from internal and external drives. You have the option to choose different wiping methods to wipe the free disk space to different degrees.

How do I securely erase my hard drive before selling it?

You can securely delete all free space on your hard drive by typing the command: cipher /w:C:. Besides, you can also apply a reliable disk wiper like AOMEI Partition Assistant introduced in this passage to erase your hard disk safely.

Final words

You can secure wipe hard drive free via Command Prompt or AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. If you need to erase data on a solid-state drive and recover its performance, it’s not wise to apply the ways mentioned. Here you can employ the SSD Secure Erase Wizard in AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional. It applies ATA Secure Erase command line and can erase data irrecoverably on SSD.