After using a hard drive for a long time, you may want to upgrade the hard drive to a larger drive to gain more capacity so that you can store more things on it. Also, there is a possibility that you want to sell it out or donate it to your friends. Before that, it’s essential to remove sensitive data to protect your privacy.
To make it, you need a professional zero filling utility, like AOMEI Backupper Standard, which can help you wipe hard drive and disk data thoroughly. It has different wiping types and wiping methods that can satisfy other users’ needs.
Then, let’s learn more about disk wipes in this software and wipe the hard drive with it.
Zero fill hard drive utility and its features.
AOMEI Backupper Standard zero out hard drive using a feature called “Disk Wipe,” which can be used on any Windows system, such as Windows XP/Vista/7/8/8.1/10.
With it, you can wipe the entire hard drive, either system disk or data disk, specific partition(s), or unallocated space. And this is what we called wiping types. You have two options: Wipe partition(s) or unallocated space on the disk and Wipe disk.
Then, how to wipe the hard drive completely? You need to overwrite the binary data on the magnetic polarities (where the disk store and read data) with new data. Otherwise, the deleted data can still be recovered using professional data recovery software.
According to this role, AOMEI Backupper Standard provides users with four wiping methods, including Fill sectors with zero, Fill sectors with random data, DoD 52220.22-M, Gutmann. And you need to know the disk data is not recovered after the wiping process is complete.
Step by step guide: wipe the hard drive and disk data easily
As mentioned earlier, the data on the hard drive will be removed thoroughly after zeroing out. Thus it’s essential to backup files that mean a lot to you. If you are not sure you want to wipe the entire hard drive, it’s also recommended to the backup hard drive in advance.
No matter what you want to backup, it would help if you had free backup software for help. You could directly use AOMEI Backupper Standard, and it has four backup solutions, namely, file backup, system backup, disk backup, partition backup. Just download it and use its backup solution to make an exact copy of your files or hard drive.
Step 1: Launch zero-filling utility AOMEI Backupper Standard, then go to Tools > Disk Wipe.
Step 2: In the wiping type window, you can choose “Wipe selected partitions & unallocated space on the disk” or “Wipe disk,” it depends on what you want to wipe.
- If you want to wipe a specific partition(s) or unallocated space, select the first wiping type.
- If you want to delete all the partitions once and for all, select the second wiping type.
Step 3: Select the disk you want to wipe and click Next. If it’s an external hard drive, please connect it ahead of time.
Note that it will execute the wiping system disk of the current computer under the Windows Recovery Environment. If this is your case, your computer will restart automatically. Please don’t stop this operation.
Step 4: In the wiping method window, select Fill sectors with zero and click Start.
Here are four wiping methods that represent various degrees of overwriting. You can choose any of them. The “Fill sectors with zero” is enough to erase all data on the disk. But if you want a safer method, you could consider using “Fill sectors with random data,” “DoD 52220.22-M”, “Gutmann” in the professional or higher version.
Notes
If you have any further questions, you could click the Help button at the left-bottom corner and learn more about Disk Wipe. Also, you can contact us for help.
It’s suggested to create a bootable USB with this software to boot the computer when it refuses to boot.
Your Turn
If you plan to upgrade your hard drive, sell it out or donate to your friends, please remember to wipe hard drive and disk data to avoid privacy leakage. If you think there is no critical data, you can physically destroy it with a hammer.
Note that deletion only makes your data invisible on the hard drive, but it can still be recovered if you use professional data recovery software. If you don’t want others to see any private or sensitive data, you’d better wipe it thoroughly.
