But again, using DBAN for wiping external drive is a bit complex since it’s a standalone tool that boots from a USB drive just like a system repair disc or windows installation media.
The erasure time depends on what algorithm you chose and how many passes it’s going to runĭBAN or Darik’s Boot and Nuke is another data destruction software utility that can be used to completely wipe your external hard drive.
This is the only tool that supports 17 international data erasure algorithms, such as DoD 52220.22-M (3 passes/7 passes), NATO, etc., and uses them to destroy the data from a storage device beyond the scope of recovery (one at a time). If you want, you can run it again or increase the pass by changing –p 2 top 3 or more. Once done, you can reuse, dispose, or donate your drive Wait for a while for the erasure process to complete.(here, X is your external hard drive letter)
Type sdelete –p 2 –s X:\*.* and hit the Enter key.Open Command Prompt with administrator rights.
It runs from the command line and can wipe free space, files, and external drives & volumes. SDelete is a popular free secure-delete utility from Microsoft that can permanently erase your data using the DoD 5220.22-M data erasure standard. It’s compatible with Windows 10 and previous versions (up to XP) and uses following data sanitization methods: The tool also helps you schedule eraser tasks (use it carefully since once files are deleted, they can’t be recovered). It’s a powerful erasure tool but is not built for minimalists as the software is highly complex and not user-friendly. EraserĮraser is a free, open-source data destruction tool that lets you safely destroy data and wipe the external hard drive with the help of various data destruction algorithms. Please note that I included an extra section for SSDs at the end. The following are five different methods to wipe an external hard drive (HDD) using Windows 10. Thus, actual data remains on the drive and can be recovered with a basic data recovery tool by the person who is re-using the drive. Only the pointer or entry from the index table in the File System is removed. Further, wiping is necessary since deletion or formatting does not actually destroy the data from a storage device. Wiping is the most preferred way of data destruction when compared to physical destruction or degaussing, which does the same job but at a much higher expense and also generates a ton of e-waste. Wiping a hard drive means destroying the data from the hard drive permanently by overwriting with a pattern of 0’s and 1’s.