Looking for the right steps to completely wipe hard disk in Windows 10, then this blog post is dedicated to you.
Have you ever came across a situation when your computer’s HDD is full of malware and formatting one of the partition doesn’t help? What would you do? The only answer is to completely wipe the HardDisk, reset your machine and start from zero again. But, how to do it? How to completely Wipe a HardDisk if you are using a Windows machine?
Now, there can be a number of reasons for wiping your HDD, and there can be many ways too. Maybe you want to hand over your computer to someone who needs it more than you, donating to charity or selling the hard disk. Whatever is the reason, today we will learn how to wipe a HardDisk in Windows 10 completely.
How to Wipe Partition of Hard Disk (Completely)
If you have something important on a Windows machine, then you definitely might be knowing the pain of losing your data due to specific virus or malware. But, to remove these things you have to wipe your HDD completely.
In the following blog post, we’re going to take help of Windows 10 native hard disk wipe tool to complete the computer hard disk.
Thing to Keep in Mind
Before you start the steps keep in mind that every file of your HDD will be erased, so if there is anything you want then save a copy of it somewhere else.
Let’s learn how to completely wipe your Hard Disk using Windows PowerShell(Admin).
1. Launch Elevated Windows Powershell. For that, press Windows + X keys on your keyboard. This will launch the WINX menu.
2. In the menu, select the Windows PowerShell(Admin) option. The PowerShell window will open up.
3. Next, you need to type the following commands:
Format 'drivename /P:NumberOfPasses'
In the place of ‘drivename,’ you need to type the name of the drive which is to be formatted, and the ‘NumberOfPasses‘ refers to the number of times you want each sector to be overwritten and cleaned.
For example, if you want to format a drive having name D, and you want three passes of formatting, then you need to use the following command:
Format G: /P:3
This will format the drive partition you want to clean. Since formatting a hard drive using Windows PowerShell or Command Prompt is a time-consuming process. You need to wait for the process to complete successfully. You can repeat the same process if required.
Keep in mind, more the number of passes you enter, more the time it will take.
Note: For this tutorial I have used my flash drive as a partition to demonstrate how the process wiping hard drive works.
Now your partition is completely wiped and available for use. As simple as that.
Wipe Hard Drive in Windows 7 and Windows 8
In case, you want to completely wipe hard drive in Windows 7 and Windows 8; then you’re in luck. Fortunately, you can follow the step discussed above. These steps also work fine in all the earlier version of Windows operating system. If you have a computer or laptop running Windows 7 and Windows 8, then you need to follow the same steps to wipe Hard Drive in Windows 7 and Windows 8.
Find this blog post handy? If you need further assistance, then feel free to contact me via comment.
Hi Viney thanks for the information but this is not formatting a hard drive this is only formatting a volume on a hard drive which means other volumes that do not have drive letters could still be on the hard drive. Would not want people to think this is a secure way to delete everything on their hard drive before selling it.
It really gets agrivating when you search on one laptop on how to burn and download windows 8.1 that was supposed to be free , but because of redirecting buttons with lies printed on them and about 200 sites of either pure lies or half truths , i had to buy one with a key couldn’t find the hidden key on the old HP 110 pc. And after a day of trying to put this together all i have is a disk and thumb drive with windows 8.1 on them because of drivers missing on the one im trying to replace i couldnt get either one to install , so i decided to wipe the system let it all go my content to , so at 6:15am today i took your code and found its no better than the other 200 sites ive been on since 4:30am yesterday , your lil simple cose gets no results at all itr even said Format isnt recognized , i remember when i was a kid with my commodore 64 and floppys theses computers did the job , it seems that technology is being held up by profits from selling apps to fix crap that shouldn’t break and you should give correct info for , thanks anyway rage against the machine scrw the man , and you have a blessed day