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How to Wipe hard drive on my Windows 7 computer?
I need assistance with wiping my hard drive on a Windows 7 system. I am preparing to sell my computer and want to ensure that all my personal data is securely erased before passing it on to someone e...
The most secure way to wipe your drive is to use a tool that runs outside of Windows itself, like DBAN. This is because you need to erase the entire drive, including the partition where Windows is installed, which you can't do from within a running Windows session.
DBAN is a free, industry-standard tool that boots from a USB drive and completely erases the hard drive by overwriting every sector with random data, making your old data unrecoverable.
Important Warning: This process is permanent and irreversible. Once you run DBAN, everything on the computer's hard drive will be gone forever, including Windows 7. The new owner will need to install their own operating system.