
A number of different government standards are supported. The software lets you pick the write pattern and the number of writes. Shredit for Windows is a privacy application that is designed to securely erase individual files, free space, or entire hard drives. Furthermore, erase operations can be run manually or scheduled. This utility allows you to securely erase specific files, folders, unused disk space, or even the recycle bin. You can even define your own method for overwriting data. The most interesting thing about this utility is that it provides several different methods for overwriting data, based on a number of different standards. EraserĮraser from Heidi Computers, is another free utility for securely erasing data from a hard disk. When a hard disk has been erased, the software generates a certificate that you can print as a way of proving that the disk has been securely erased. More importantly, this utility adheres to United States Department of Defense standards (DoD 5220.22M) for hard disk data removal.Īlthough some might consider it to be hokey, I especially liked the certificate feature. SEE: Quick glossary: Storage (Tech Pro Research) Disk – Hard Drive Kill Disk – Hard Drive Eraser is a free utility for securely erasing a hard drive. That being the case, I decided to create a list of five utilities for securely erasing and formatting old hard drives. In this age of rampant ID theft, it is more important than ever to ensure that your personal information is securely removed from all hard disks. When it comes to disposing of old hard drives, simply erasing your files or reformatting the drive alone is not enough to ensure your privacy. Please support the nixCraft with a PayPal donation or Patreon.ChatGPT cheat sheet: Complete guide for 2023Ħ best alternatives for 2023 (Free & Paid) Keeping the site online is challenging, with everyone blocking Ads 😔. nixCraft is a one-person show, and many of you use Adblocker. 🥺 Was this helpful? Please add a comment to show your appreciation or feedback. Join the nixCraft community via RSS Feed or Email Newsletter. He wrote more than 7k+ posts and helped numerous readers to master IT topics. Vivek Gite is the founder of nixCraft, the oldest running blog about Linux and open source. Type the following command to securely wipe out /dev/sdb: It overwrites hard disks, files, and other devices with repeating patterns intended to make recovering data from these devices more difficult.

You can also use disk scrubbing program such as scrub. Shred -n 5 -vz /dev/sdb Method #3: Say hello to scrub command You can use the shred command to securely remove everything so that no one recover any data: Dd if= /dev /zero of= /dev /sdb bs= 512 count= 1 fdisk -l /dev /sdb Method #2: Securely wipe hard disk with shred command
