How do I permanently delete files, photos from sd card on Windows PC?

GavinBrown Make a backup of important data before deleting the files. After that, right click on the SD card on a Windows PC. From the pop-up menu, choose the Format menu to delete files from SD card. This is the most simple way to ease a SD card.

GavinBrown 

Formatting an SD card is actually the most common way to delete files. I have used it several times before. I just right-clicked the drive letter of the SD card on my computer and selected "Format". The process was very quick and all the files seemed to be deleted. But later I tested it with recovery software and it turned out that I was able to recover some photos and files! This made me realize that ordinary formatting is not thorough and there is still a chance that the data can be recovered.

So if you want to permanently delete photos from sd card, I don't recommend ordinary formatting. It is safer to use more professional tools to erase data from sd card.

GavinBrown 

A full format is more thorough than a quick format. I have used this method before. Find the SD card in Disk Management, right-click and select "Format", and then cancel the "Quick Format" option. The whole process will take longer because the system will clean up each sector, and it will appear that all the files have been deleted.

However, even so, some data recovery tools can still recover some files, especially some key pictures or documents. So although a full format is better than a quick format, it is still not safe to completely delete photos or files from sd card, You'd better ask professional IT personnel to solve this problem.

GavinBrown 

You can manually put insignificant large files on the SD card to overwrite the data, which is also a feasible way to permanently delete file from SD card! These files will fill up the remaining space and format it again. I have tried this method. First, copy some insignificant, large-space files (such as movies, blank files, etc.) to the SD card until its remaining space is full. Then format it again. In this way, the original data is overwritten by these new files, and even if you use recovery tools, you can only recover those insignificant large files.

This method is relatively simple and does not require the installation of additional software. But it should be noted that the overwriting process may be time-consuming, especially when the SD card capacity is large, and it cannot 100% guarantee that all data will be completely overwritten. But for ordinary users, this method can indeed increase the thoroughness of data deletion and reduce the possibility of recovery.

To permanently delete some files and photos on SD card. If you're feeling adventurous, you can use Command Prompt for a more manual method to delete files securely:

1. Open Command Prompt as an admin.
2. Type diskpart and press Enter.
3. Type list disk to see all drives and identify your SD card.
4. Type select disk X (replace X with the disk number of your SD card).
5. Type clean all - this will wipe everything off the card by overwriting it completely and is usually more effective than a regular format.

GavinBrown 

Using the command line method to completely wipe SD card is actually a good choice, especially if you don't want to rely on third-party tools. I have used the Diskpart command before, which is easy to use and more thorough than normal formatting.

The specific steps are as follows:

1. Open the Command Prompt (CMD): Type "cmd" in the Windows search bar, then right-click and select "Run as administrator".
2. Start Diskpart: Type diskpart in the command prompt and press Enter.
3. List all disks: Type list disk and press Enter. This will list all connected disks, including SD cards.
4. Select your SD card: Find the number corresponding to the SD card, type select disk X, replace X with the number of the SD card, and press Enter.
5. Clear data: Type the clean command and press Enter. This command will clear all partitions and data.
6. Recreate partitions and format: Type create partition primary to recreate the partitions, and then use format fs=fat32 quick to quickly format the SD card.

This command line method is much more thorough than normal formatting because it clears the partition table. After that, data recovery is almost impossible. I feel this method is quite safe and suitable for completely erase file on SD card.

GavinBrown 

In Windows' Disk Management tool, select the SD card and choose Complete Format (uncheck "Quick Format"). This method is more thorough than a quick format, but it is still possible to recover some data.

These methods are suitable for situations where you need to completely delete photos on SD card. You can choose the appropriate method based on your needs. If the data is particularly sensitive, third-party tools and professional erasure software will be more effective.

GavinBrown

 You can also use Powershell to perform SD card clearing operations. With the Clear-Disk command, you can erase all data and partitions from SD card:

Clear-Disk -Number X -RemoveData

Replace X with your SD card number. This method is similar to the Diskpart clean command.

Do deleted files stay on SD card? Yes, deleted files often remain on an SD card even after they are "deleted."

When you delete a file from an SD card, the operating system doesn't immediately erase the data. Instead, it marks the space previously occupied by the file as available for new data to be written. The actual data remains intact until it is overwritten by new files. This means that, in many cases, it is possible to recover deleted files using specialized data recovery software, as long as the space hasn't been reused.

This is why a single deletion or formatting won't permanently deleted files or photos from SD card card. To completely erase an SD card, you have to overwrite the current data with random files at least one time. Overwritten data is much more hard to be recovered!