Many applications are either paid solutions, have a limited number of applications, or cannot run on all devices.

The variety of hard drive erasing tools makes it difficult to make a choice.

In this article, I am showing you how to nuke all of your data according to such a standard.ĭownload a free and versatile erasure software There are several data erasure standards, like the DoD 5220.22-M from the American Department of Defense, that define how data is securely deleted. In order to guarantee irrevocable deletion, it is recommended to erase the entire contents of your disk and overwrite it several times with random data. Simply deleting your sensitive files via the system menu is often not sufficient as professional data recovery tools may be able to restore them. You can also boot with a Linux distribution with hdparm installed and use that command-line utility.When selling your computer or returning it to your employer, then you should make sure to securely erase the data of your hard drive to prevent unauthorized access to it. You’ll need to hit up your vendor for a tool, or check out Parted Magic and its DriveEraser utility. Also, if your drive’s security is in a frozen state (most these days are to prevent access by malware), then hdderase.exe won’t work. How they could back-door a utility like this is beyond me, but I’m putting it out there. One is that the NSA sponsored its development. There are several possible flies in the hdderase.exe ointment. Utilities from drive vendors now do this, but you can also employ a free, old-school, command-line utility from the data experts at the University of California San Diego called HDDerase.exe. If you want to re-use a hard or solid state drive, but want to make sure that possibly sensitive data from its previous life isn’t still hanging around, the easiest way to do it is invoke the ATA secure erase command-a feature built into every drive manufactured since 2001.

Hdd erase