A hard drive is a storage device that can help you store all kinds of data such as your photos, videos, music, documents, programs, etc. You can still use it as a system drive to start your computer, in this situation, you need the operating system, bootable partitions such as the system reserved partition, and other necessary drivers.
In most cases, it helps a lot, but sometimes you need to wipe hard drive in Windows 7 using command line, which is very helpful for system administrators to run unwanted tasks or scripts. This may be because you want to wipe the laptop hard drive to fix a malfunction or to donate or sell etc. In any case, in this article you can learn how to do it using the command line. In addition, an easier way will be introduced.
Clean hard drive in Windows 7 from CMD
Here you will use Diskpart clean all to erase the disk leaving it unallocated and uninitialized, then repartition and determine the disk’s file system. After that, you can reuse this hard drive to store or backup your important files to protect your data.
Grades:
- Diskpart clean all – This command erases all data on the disk and lists all sectors with a zero value. This makes the data on the drive difficult to recover.
- Format: Allows you to specify a file system for the hard drive and then reformat it. So you don’t have to worry about data leakage.
Next, let’s see the detailed steps to wipe hard drive from cmd:
- Step 1. Run cmd as administrator. Then type Diskpart in the Command Prompt window and press Enter.
- Step 2. Type list disk to see all available disks on your computer.
- Step 3. Type ‘select disk n (disk number)’ to select the disk you want to erase. Then press Enter to continue.
- Step 4. Type ‘clean up all’ and press Enter to completely remove all files and folders and leave unallocated disk space.
- Step 5. Type ‘create primary partition’ and press Enter to recreate the partition with Unallocated space.
- Step 6. Type ‘format fs=ntfs’ and press Enter to add the file system of this disk.
- Step 7. Now the disk has a partition with a file system, you just need to type assign and press Enter to add a drive letter to it.
Wait until the process is complete, you can open this formatted drive in Windows File Explorer and do whatever you want, for example, use it to back up files you want to protect.
This method is very useful if you are familiar with the command line. But if not, you may not find it easy to understand and use, because a simple parameter error can lead to data loss.
Next, is there an easier way to erase a hard drive in Windows 7?
The answer is YES, you can use a free hard drive eraser like AOMEI Backupper Standard to erase your hard drive. It is very flexible, you can use it to wipe Unallocated space, partition(s) and entire disk with different disk wipe methods. The free version only supports “Zero Fill Sectors”, but that’s enough to erase all data on the drive.
But if you want a more comprehensive way to clean disk, you can use its professional version and 3 other methods of disk cleaning, including “Fill sectors with random data”, “DOD 5220.22-M”, “Gutmann”. Among them, the last method can erase the disk in 35 passes, you can imagine how difficult it is to recover it.
An easier way to clean up your hard drive in Windows 7
Here you will use AOMEI Backupper Standard Hard Disk Wiper to clean disk in Windows 7 using its disk cleanup function, below are the steps:
- Step 1. Install AOMEI Backupper Standard and open this tool. Then go to Tools and select Disk Erase.
- Step 2. In the wipe type window, choose between Wipe partition(s) or unallocated disk space and Wipe disk. To erase all data on the entire disk, select Erase disk and click Next to continue.
- Step 3. You will then be prompted to select the drive you want to erase, select it and click Next.
- Step 4. Here is the last step, you will see 4 methods to erase disk, select Fill sectors with zero and click Start. It will start to erase your drive and the time depends on the amount of data on your drive.
Grades:
- This feature does not currently support erasing dynamic disks.
- This software only allows to erase the current system disk in reboot mode and cannot start the computer normally. Therefore, it is suggested that you remove this disk from your computer and perform this procedure on another computer.
Now you may know how to easily wipe disk in Windows 7 with the help of AOMEI Backupper Standard Free Hard Disk Wiper. Also, this software can be used to securely wipe HDD on Windows 8/8.1/10 and earlier systems.
Also, this software is still a free backup software that helps you make an exact copy of your files and track the changes you made later. To ensure data security, you may decide to create 3 backups, save them in two different locations, preferably an offsite copy, backup files on OneDrive for example.
A cloud drive is one of the safest ways to protect your data as it can prevent data loss due to computer failures such as viruses, system crashes, disk crash, etc. Therefore, if you have multiple cloud drives, it is recommended to transfer files between them, moving files from Dropbox to Google Drive, for example. For this, you need a cloud backup service that supports multiple clouds, like CBackup.
Abstract
This is how to wipe hard drive in Windows 7 using command line and AOMEI Backupper Standard free hard drive wipe. Honestly, the latter is easier and suitable for most of the users, you just need to follow the above steps. It also supports all kinds of security solutions that help you protect your computer, such as file backup, system backup, disk backup, scheduled backup, etc. Why not try it?
Categories: How to
Source: HIS Education