Fastest way to wipe hard drive that I will still use.

[yopig]

Hello, I have a 500GB Hard drive and i want to quickly whip all the data off it. I have seen many methods online that take ages because it makes the data unrecoverable but i just want to wipe the drive because I will still be using it. Should I just format it with windows or use an external program.

Thanks in advance.

 

[USAFRet]

Hello, I have a 500GB Hard drive and i want to quickly whip all the data off it. I have seen many methods online that take ages because it makes the data unrecoverable but i just want to wipe the drive because I will still be using it. Should I just format it with windows or use an external program.

Thanks in advance.

It appears you are still going to be using this?
Disk Management, delete all partitions on it, create one new partition using the whole space, Format.

 

[crystal_tech]

boot up your windows installer (if its your boot disk) hit crtl + f10 and it will open a cmd window, type diskpart and hit enter.

then type

list disk

select disk # (# is the number of the disk your wiping)

clean

exit

exit

install windows.

it will wipe EVERYTHING off the disk.

if not a boot disk and like a data disk same commands just open admin command prompt.

 

[yopig]

Hello, I have a 500GB Hard drive and i want to quickly whip all the data off it. I have seen many methods online that take ages because it makes the data unrecoverable but i just want to wipe the drive because I will still be using it. Should I just format it with windows or use an external program.

Thanks in advance.

It appears you are still going to be using this?
Disk Management, delete all partitions on it, create one new partition using the whole space, Format.

Thanks for your fast response and assistance with this dilemma I had.

 

[yopig]

boot up your windows installer (if its your boot disk) hit crtl + f10 and it will open a cmd window, type diskpart and hit enter.

then type

list disk

select disk # (# is the number of the disk your wiping)

clean

exit

exit

install windows.

it will wipe EVERYTHING off the disk.

if not a boot disk and like a data disk same commands just open admin command prompt.

Hello I tried your method and the CMD comes up saying this "Virtual Disk Service error:
Clean is not allowed on the disk containing the current boot,
system, pagefile, crashdump or hibernation volume." It is not the drive i am running Windows on it just has a bunch of games on it i want to delete.

Thanks

 

[yopig]

Hello, I have a 500GB Hard drive and i want to quickly whip all the data off it. I have seen many methods online that take ages because it makes the data unrecoverable but i just want to wipe the drive because I will still be using it. Should I just format it with windows or use an external program.

Thanks in advance.

It appears you are still going to be using this?
Disk Management, delete all partitions on it, create one new partition using the whole space, Format.

Hello, I have also tried your method and it says "Windows cannot delete the active system partition on this disk" this hard drive doesn't have Windows on it just a bunch of games.

Thanks

 

[USAFRet]

Hello, I have a 500GB Hard drive and i want to quickly whip all the data off it. I have seen many methods online that take ages because it makes the data unrecoverable but i just want to wipe the drive because I will still be using it. Should I just format it with windows or use an external program.

Thanks in advance.

It appears you are still going to be using this?
Disk Management, delete all partitions on it, create one new partition using the whole space, Format.

Hello, I have also tried your method and it says "Windows cannot delete the active system partition on this disk" this hard drive doesn't have Windows on it just a bunch of games.

Thanks

Ahhhh....it probably has a System Reserved partition on it. This is your boot info.
Without that, your system will not boot up.
This happens when the OS is installed with more than one drive connected.

 

[USAFRet]

Can you post a screencap of your Disk Management window?

 

[yopig]

Hello, I have a 500GB Hard drive and i want to quickly whip all the data off it. I have seen many methods online that take ages because it makes the data unrecoverable but i just want to wipe the drive because I will still be using it. Should I just format it with windows or use an external program.

Thanks in advance.

It appears you are still going to be using this?
Disk Management, delete all partitions on it, create one new partition using the whole space, Format.

Hello, I have also tried your method and it says "Windows cannot delete the active system partition on this disk" this hard drive doesn't have Windows on it just a bunch of games.

Thanks

Ahhhh....it probably has a System Reserved partition on it. This is your boot info.
Without that, your system will not boot up.
This happens when the OS is installed with more than one drive connected.

Yes. It does seem like the boot files are on that hard drive as i unplugged it and it did not boot.

 

[USAFRet]

Yes. It does seem like the boot files are on that hard drive as i unplugged it and it did not boot.

For a possible fix:

Assuming you have a viable boot DVD or USB
Disconnect all drives except your current C drive
Boot from that install media, and go to the Repair function
See what happens.
This might fix the issue, and put that boot info on your actual C drive.

Please report back with success or fail.

 

[yopig]

Yes. It does seem like the boot files are on that hard drive as i unplugged it and it did not boot.

For a possible fix:

Assuming you have a viable boot DVD or USB
Disconnect all drives except your current C drive
Boot from that install media, and go to the Repair function
See what happens.
This might fix the issue, and put that boot info on your actual C drive.

Please report back with success or fail.

Hello, so I have tried booting from a Windows 10 usb and running the repair, it just said diagnosing the computer and then restarted without doing anything. I then did a google search and ran the command "c:\windows\system32\bcdboot.exe c:\windows" in CMD. It finished saying "Boot files successfully created." I then restarted my computer only with my windows drive and it said "NTLDR is missing Press CNTRL + ALT + DEL". I then plugged in the hard drive with the boot files on them and it said the same thing. I ended up booting the hard drive with the boot files on them and it worked. I don't know what to do. I think I will download a fresh Windows 10 ISO from Microsoft and try the startup repair again.

Thanks