Before Selling Computer: Wipe Hard Drive is Must-Do

Should I wipe my hard drive before selling?

"I have a question. I am planning to sell my laptop soon and I want to delete everything. I want to make sure that nothing is traceable (password, documents, other computer files, etc). I have one 500 GB HDD and one 120GB SSD. I want to delete everything from both. I'm a little lost on what to do and in what order. Any help would be very appreciated."

From the user case above, we can see that selling computer wipe hard drive is essential. This is because if the data is erased, it won't be restored even by some professional recovery software. If you forget to wipe any data on your hard drive and then sell your computer to others, you may face the risk of information leakage, which may bring some severe problems for you. Therefore, you'd better erase hard drive before selling to make sure your important data won't be stolen or used by bad people.

How to wipe computer hard drive before selling?

After having a basic understanding of the importance of wiping disks before selling, let's come to the most crucial part: how to wipe hard drive to sell computer. Actually, you couldn't just use a hammer to damage it physically, because you have to leave the device healthy and available for the next owner. Thus, the following content will give you a secure and practical way to erase all the data on your hard drive.

▷ Back up your computer

Since we have said the erased data will not be restored, you should create a backup of your files for yourself so that you can use it on another device in the future. To copy your computer, it's not recommended to use the built-in feature to create a system image backup because when you wipe your hard drive, it will wipe out any local backups you may have. Thus, you can use a third-party tool to back up like cloning your hard drive to an external hard drive.

▷ Find a reliable hard drive eraser

When you finish the backup, you could begin wiping. If you think erasing hard drive is deleting all the data on it, it's totally wrong! Neither deleting partitions nor formatting partitions make the data irrecoverable, it just makes the data hard to be found rather than wiping them completely. So the deleted partitions are easy to be restored by some recovery software before they are rewritten by other new data. To this end, it's difficult for Windows built-in utilities to realize it.

In such a case, it's wise to choose a third-party hard drive eraser named AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard to help you, which can not only help you wipe your computer clean, but also keep the disk performance in the best mood. With a clear interface and easy steps, it is one of the most popular disk erasers among Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, XP, and Vista users.

▷ Step-by-step tutorial for selling computer wipe hard drive

After everything is well prepared, now, you may want to download the freeware to experience how to wipe computer hard drive before selling.

Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. In the main interface, right-click the hard drive that needs to be wiped, select "Wipe Hard Drive" in the pop up menu.

Step 2. It will pop up a window for you to choose wiping method. Here we choose "Fill sectors with Zero", which is safe and quick. This operation will delete all partitions and erase all data on the selected hard drive. Click "OK" to continue.

Note: You can upgrade to AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional for the other four advanced wiping methods, which can help you clean the computer hard drive deeply.

Step 3. It will pop up a note to ask you if you are sure to delete all partitions including the system partition. If the system partition is deleted, your computer won't start the next time. If there is no problem, click "Yes" to move on.

Step 4. Click "Apply" to start wiping.

This is about how to wipe HDD, if your hard drive is SSD, the method above is not applicable. Because of the different working principles between HDD and SSD, the wrong way will damage its lifespan. Fortunately, AOMEI software is a professional hard drive eraser, it provides you with "Secure Erase SSD" feature, enabling you to erase SSD without causing any damage.

Summary

From this page, you have learned the importance of selling computer wipe hard drive and how to perform it. As we can see, no matter whether you are using HDD or SSD, you can always rely on AOMEI Partition Assistant. Meanwhile, if you don't want to sell your computer, you can also wipe your hard drive to increase its read and write speed. In addition, you could enjoy more useful functions in this software: migrate OS to SSD, move programs to another drive, convert MBR to GPT, etc.