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How do I delete everything off my old hard drive on Windows PC?
I'm looking for guidance on how to completely delete everything off from old hard drive. I want to ensure that everything is removed permanently, as I'm planning to either dispose of the drive or rep...
Once you're sure you've backed up everything important, it's time to make things disappear! If you’re running Windows, there are a couple of ways to completely delete everything off old drive on Windows computer.
Using Windows Reset Option:
- Go to Settings > Update & Security > Recovery.
- Click on Get started under "Reset this PC."
- Choose Remove everything. This works well if it’s a system drive, but you can also use this if it’s just an old drive you want to wipe.
Using DiskPart (for a hardcore wipe):
This is what I personally use when I really want to make sure everything's gone.
- Open the Command Prompt as an admin (search for it, right-click, and hit “Run as administrator”).
- Type diskpart and hit Enter.
- Then, type list disk to see all your drives.
- Find your drive in the list, take note of its number, and type select disk X (replace X with the number of your old hard drive).
- Finally, type clean all to wipe it. (Heads up: this will take a while depending on the size of your drive, but it’s thorough!)