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Well, there are several ways:
Getting Rid of the Data Physically and Destructively
One, if you don't need the hard drive after the "wipe," is to hammer a nail or two through the unplugged drive, rendering it unreadable to all but the most dedicated data recovery team. If you have an extremely powerful magnet, you could run that over the drive a couple times, too.
Starting Over With a Hard Drive
If you are simply trying to start over with your hard drive, you can use Windows' built-in formatter to erase and reformat the drive. In "My Computer," right-click the drive, select format, use all of the default settings (save for the label of the drive), and hit "Format." This will not work if the hard drive you are trying to wipe is your only or main hard drive, though, and is not completely secure for those of you who are trying to purge data permanently and securely.
If it is your main hard drive, then you can simply reinstall Windows or any other operating system on your computer. This is done by popping in the recovery CD's or installation CD's that most likely came with your computer. Doing this will wipe all data and start you off anew, though the nature of the reinstallation means that this method is about as secure as the previous method (read: not very secure).
Wiping Sensitive Data
One last option, for those of you who want to wipe your drive securely and do not want to reinstall Windows, is to use a third-party program to erase your hard drive for you. The technique that these programs use is to write a large file to your hard drive over and over again to get rid of any residual stored data. These programs will probably cost money, and should really only be used by those who are either selling their current hard drive, and want sensitive data off, or those who really need to remove all traces of their files. To find a program capable of this, Google "Hard Drive Eraser" or "Secure Hard Drive Delete."
One could possibly do the same thing for free by deleting all of the sensitive files by reformatting, reinstalling the OS, or just deleting them in Explorer, and then writing large files to the hard drive until it fills up. This method would rewrite all of the hard drive, and render all of the data almost completely unreadable.
I hope this was helpful. Good Luck!
What else can I help you with?
How do you reformat presario sr1520nx hard drive?
formats are not drive specific so it depends on the software with windows open a command prompt and use the format command
How do you access the hard drive in MS-DOS?
If MS-DOS is installed and booted from the drive, it can be accessed immediately at the command prompt. If you have booted from an MS-DOS floppy, you can access the hard drive by typing C:
How do you access your external hard drive and the files on it with command prompt?
In the same way how you access local disks, you just need to know an external drive name.
How you can convert your flash memory drive from RAW to fat or fat32?
to access your flash drive you should be able to open my computer and then listed with the drives should be your flash drive you can just right click and then go to open. However, if this does not work do the following to convert to FAT or NTFS: To convert a volume to NTFS or FAT from the command prompt Open the Command Prompt window. In the command prompt window, type convert drive_letter: /fs:ntfs For example, typing convert D: /fs:ntfs would format drive D: with the ntfs format. Notes To open a command prompt, click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Command Prompt. You can convert FAT or FAT32 volumes to NTFS with this command.
How do you fix corrupted recycle bin?
1. Open an elevated Command Prompt window. To open an elevated Command Prompt, click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator.2. Type the following command and press ENTER:rd /s /q C:\$Recycle.bin(This clears out the $Recycle.bin folder for the C:\ drive. You may have to do this for each hard disk partition in your system.)3. Type exit to close the Command Prompt window.
When trying to install Windows in UEFI mode on a hard drive that is using the MBR partitioning system which command can you use to get a special prompt in a command prompt window where you can then re?
To convert an MBR partitioned drive to GPT for UEFI mode installation, you can use the diskpart command in the Command Prompt. First, type diskpart to enter the DiskPart utility. Then, select the disk using select disk X (replace X with the disk number) and finally run the command convert gpt. This will change the partition style to GPT, enabling the UEFI mode for Windows installation.
How do you completely clear your external hard drive?
You can completely clear your external hard drive by formatting it.
When your windows XP starts it goes into a command prompt and you can't log on it lets me choose to delete hard-drive or go to command prompt hard-drive won't delete cause of an unknown error please?
If you have a CD to restore the operating system it's a right time to use it. It looks like your PC registry was damaged which is incurable or some of system files were damaged to deleted. In the second case the restoring CD will help. Boot from the CD in the restore mode (command line mode) and try to restore the system.
How do I format a hard drive and reinstall windows when I have forgotten the administrators password I can't use a command prompt or the disc or delete programme files because I dont have the priviges?
If I were going to format and could'nt i would just buy a larger hard drive and replace the old one
When setting windows 7 when should hard drive be partition?
Always should the drive be partitioned. As NTFS for Windows 7. You can edit partitions while installing Windows through the installation menu or command prompt, or in diskmanager after the operating system is installed.
What is check disk command?
it checks for errors or defects on your hard drive and tells the computer not to write there anymore
What is the command prompt to completely wipe and reformat a hard drive that already has XP installed?
AnswerThe easiest way is with a startup disk made from a windows earlier,switch from a:/ to c:/ than type c:/format c/q.this will do a quick format." However, a quick format leaves most all the data on the hard drive for anyone with the right utilities to look at. To completely wipe your drive, you need to use the CIPHER command with the /w wipe option. The wipe option will overwrite all unallocated space with 0s, 1s and then random numbers three times.Run the format command first, since CIPHER only works on unallocated space (helping you make sure you don't accidentally erase something you intended to keep).After you have reformatted the disk in question, open the command prompt and type: cipher /w:[DRIVE LETTER]:\So if you are wiping your "E" drive, it would look something like this:C:\> cipher /w:e:\If you have a version of Windows that does not include Cipher (like XP Home edition), you may be able to get it from the Microsoft site.
