Delete files hard disk drive

A powerful rare earth magnet can also be used to destroy the platter in the hard drive. Your PC is likely packed with personal files. Norton Utilities is a handy tool that keeps your PC running like new. It fixes common issues that slow down or crash your PC. It also frees up space by finding duplicate files and unused applications. Safely dispose of personal documents, so no one can access them. Think of it as a digital shredder.

Norton Utilities helps keep what you do on your computer private. It can permanently erase all record of your computer and web-based activities to help protect your privacy. It also safely disposes of personal documents permanently and renders them inaccessible. Most of all, it maintains your digital privacy by erasing your recently opened files and website browsing history. All rights reserved.

Firefox is a trademark of Mozilla Foundation. App Store is a service mark of Apple Inc. Alexa and all related logos are trademarks of Amazon. Microsoft and the Window logo are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the U. The Android robot is reproduced or modified from work created and shared by Google and used according to terms described in the Creative Commons 3.

Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. How To. Security Center How To 5 steps to wipe a computer hard drive. July 13, Join today. Cancel anytime. Start Free Trial. If yes, you should take a fresh look at this issue. We'll explain reasons in an easier manner. Hard drive is a kind of storage devices which is used to store digital data. Files are stored on the surface of magnetic and rotating platters in hard disk case.

Hard disk changes the magnetic property of platter surface to 1 or 0 when reading or writing data. Thus all data on hard drive will be finally stored in the form of basic binary data, for example, when system saves data like photos, music, etc.

When a file is deleted, those ones and zeros of that files stays unaffected, for only a pointer indicating the file is being deleted. Therefore, the recovering deleted files is available before file data gets overwritten or damaged. What about disk formatting?

Formatting works in a similar way, as it does not actually wipe data. Formatting disk or partition looks like tearing the contents of a book without disturbing actual chapters of the book. Recovery software is also able to retrieve lost files from formatted disk.

You may wonder how disk wiping works since deletion and formatting does not work on permanently clean hard drive.

Apart from physical damage to hard drive, we can completely remove data with disk wiping technology. As we've mentioned above, to completely erase disk, we should remove those binary data, which means overwriting those zeros and ones with new data. Once binary data of a file is replaced and overwritten by new data, it cannot be recovered any more.

Some professional disk eraser software is able to filling up disk with zeros or random information sector by sector, ensuring no data can be recovered from a wiped disk.

Some preparatory work should be done before wiping computer hard drive in order to make sure the disk wiping can be completed without interruption or causing extra issues. Once everything gets ready, you can start erasing computer hard drive or external disks. The rest part of this instruction will show you how to wipe a hard drive, external disk, SD card or flash drive via different ways.

This method wipes computer by using the reset feature in Windows 8. This section takes Windows 10 as example to explain how to wipe computer completely. If your computer is running an older version of Windows, you can try steps in Method 2 to erase hard disk. Here are steps to wipe a hard drive in Windows Step 1.

Click " Start " menu and select " Settings " option. Step 2. Click " Recovery " option on the left navigation options and then click " Get Started " button under " Reset this PC " section. Step 3. Select " Remove everything " option.

This will remove all of your personal files, apps, and settings and start over. Step 4. Select " Remove files and clean the drive " when you are asked to whether to clean the drives too. The cleaning process may take longer time but it makes sure no one can recover erased files.

Step 5. Click " Next " and " Reset " button on following steps to complete the task. The secure way to erase data for good is overwriting data and refill hard disk using zeros or random data, so that nobody can recover wiped data with disk recovery software. Sounds complex? Also, this software can solve dozens of problem like dynamic disk invalid, Diskpart list volume there are no volumes , etc. Now, free download it and see how to permanelty delete files from hard disk drive.

Step 1. Install and run the tool. Step 2. If you ensure you want to permanently erase files from the hard drive, choose "Fill Sector with Zero" and click "OK". Step 3. In this window, you can preview the final result and click "Apply". And, you still can permanently remove files from SSD. Erasing everything Open Settings.

Click on Recovery. Under the Reset this PC section, click the Get started button. Click the Remove everything button. Click the Change settings option. Turn on the Data erasure toggle switch. Click the Confirm button. Formatting the hard drive is a bit more secure than simply erasing the files. Formatting a disk does not erase the data on the disk, only the address tables.

For those who accidentally reformat a hard disk, being able to recover most or all the data that was on the disk is a good thing. By far, the easiest way to completely erase a hard drive is to use free data destruction software, sometimes called hard drive eraser software or disk wipe software. Close all the programs.