How to Clean Off Information on Extra Drives


  1. dino84
    Posts : 8
    Windows 10 Home
       New #1

    How to Clean Off Information on Extra Drives


    I am running a Dell Inspiron 3647 Desktop with, Windows 10 Home Edition, with an Intel Pentium CPU G3240 @3.10GHz
    Memory is 8 GB
    64 Bit Operating System
    But my question is not about my computer, but about several extra Internal ATA Hard Drives that I've accumulated over the years and I would like to clean the information off of them and sell them on E-Bay. I need to know the best way to do that! Can anyone give me some ideas. It has been a several years since I've played with the inside of a computer and am not familiar with the new procedures.
    Any help is appreciated,
    Dino84
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  3. Eagle51
    Posts : 1,470
    Win10 Home x64 - 1809
       New #2

    Hey dino84,
    Check out a USB external enclosure. I have the Sabrent EC-DFLT :)
    https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=lp_1603...nid=2886899011
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  4. Stevekir
    Posts : 340
    Windows 10 Home 64 bit (with Creators OS)
       New #3

    To clean off all info on a hard drive, right-click on the drive in File Explorer and choose Format. In the window that opens, uncheck Quick because this will result in a more thorough scour. It will take a long time though, several hours for 1 TB. This should thoroughly remove all data.
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  6. Winuser
    Posts : 7,127
    Windows 10 Pro Insider
       New #4

    I use eraser when I want to securely delete my data. If you want to try it scroll down on the page to get to the download links. https://eraser.heidi.ie/download/
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  7. Winuser
    Posts : 7,127
    Windows 10 Pro Insider
       New #5

    Stevekir said:
    To clean off all info on a hard drive, right-click on the drive in File Explorer and choose Format. In the window that opens, uncheck Quick because this will result in a more thorough scour. It will take a long time though, several hours for 1 TB. This should thoroughly remove all data.
    Formatting a drive is not a very secure way to delete personal files. Recover Files from Formatted Hard Drive and Partition.
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  8. vgchat
    Posts : 459
    Windows 10 Pro
       New #6

    Winuser said:
    Formatting a drive is not a very secure way to delete personal files. Recover Files from Formatted Hard Drive and Partition.
    All you have to do is install ccleaner & 3 HDD's to be wiped at a time. Use Drive Wiper & choose Very Complex Overwrite (35 FULL passes). Best way to do it securely.

    Or you can fully wipe the drive once and copy/paste a trash image over & over until it fills up the drive storage & full wipe once again. Here are 2 massive images that are over 80 MB each http://vgmaps.com/Atlas/PC/index.htm#UltimaVIIBlackGate
    Last edited by vgchat; 19 Aug 2017 at 22:16.
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  9. mike s
    Posts : 191
    Windows XP, 10; Knoppix [Debian] linux
       New #7

    Winuser said:
    Formatting a drive is not a very secure way to delete personal files. Recover Files from Formatted Hard Drive and Partition.
    Yep, One easy way to do a secure erase is to download a live linux system which implements the drivparm command for ATA secure erase.

    PartEdMagic is one such distro and it automates things such that it's pretty easy to use ... just be SURE you have selected the correct drive.
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