How to completely wipe a hard drive as if it was brand new
Gonna be upgrading to SSD soon and also upgrading to Windows 10 so I’m going to install it on my SSD and effectively start fresh. I still of course wish to keep my current hard drive and use it, just as a secondary drive.
I want the OS on the SSD now so I really just want to remove everything from the old drive including the OS and start fresh. So, what is the best I can clear my hard drive including OS to get the maximum performance out of it?
Thanks in advance.
This is a use case from tomshardware forum, in this situation, the user wants to wipe a hard drive including OS so as to reuse it for storage. For example, you can use it to store programs, personal files, music, videos, and any items you want. Then, the problem is how to complete wipe a hard drive including OS?
If you have ever done a deep research, you may know that there are many ways to delete everything on a hard drive. Here in this article, I’ll show you some and it’s said to be 100% working. Without further ado, let’s get started.
Method 1: Wipe hard drive completely using Diskpart Clean all commands
Wiping hard drive for reuse is simple one reason to delete all the data on the hard disk, and this may also be due to hard drive upgrade, sensitive data removal, sales or donations, etc. No matter which is your cause, you can try to wipe the hard drive and data on it with Diskpart Clean all commands. It applies to both system disk and data disk without any worry.
Before disk wiping, you need to make some preparations:
Be sure your system drive is bootable, or you will lose it.
Connect the hard drive including OS to another hard drive slot or via USB to SATA cable.
Then, you can start to delete everything on the hard drive.
Step 1. Type cmd and the select Run as administrator in the result list.
Step 2. In the command prompt window, type diskpart and hit Enter to launch this command line utility.
Step 3. Type the following commands in order and then hit Enter.
list disk
select disk m (m refers to the disk number of hard drive including OS)
clean all
Step 4. Type exit and hit Enter to leave the command prompt window.
Method 2: Wipe hard drive with free hard drive eraser
Except for Diskpart clean all commands, you can still try free hard drive eraser AOMEI Backupper to wipe disk including OS with its Disk Wipe feature. This backup software supports 3 disk wiping types and 4 disk wiping methods.
It supports wiping partitions, unallocated space, and the entire disk, so you can choose any item you want to wipe. And more surprisingly, you can choose multiple partitions or disks at once, which liberates you from tedious job to some extent.
In addition, it supports 4 disk wipe methods, among them, fill sectors with zeros is the only option that available on the free version of AOMEI Backupper. Then, you may wonder if it is enough to wipe the hard drive including OS? The answer is YES, please feel free to use it.
Note that all of your files will be removed from the hard drive. Please check if there are any important items you don’t lose.
Step 1. Install the hard drive eraser and open it for preparation. Then, go to Tools and choose Disk Wipe.
Step 2. Choose disk wiping type, you have two options, Wipe partition(s) or unallocated space, or Wipe Disk. Select Wipe Disk and click Next to continue.
Step 3. Select the hard drive including OS and then click Next.
Note: You can select several hard drives at a time if necessary.
Step 5. Choose disk wiping method, choose Fill sectors with Zero and click Start. It will delete all of your data on the hard disk and then overwrite these data with Zero.
Go and try
That’s all for how to wipe a hard drive including OS, you can select one method from above. Diskpart clean all commands work in most cases, but some users still say Diskpart clean all nothing happen. If you are in such case or want an easier way, you could try free hard drive eraser AOMEI Backupper to complete this task in simple steps.
Also, it’s a free backup software that can be used to continuously protect data on the hard disk or SSD. For example, you can use it to backup OS and all the programs and data on it, then you can restore the system image to get your computer back in a very short time.
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