How to zero fill/secure delete any drive.

[4745454b]

I know I can download software from each manufacturer, but I'd rather not have a bunch of programs on my computer that do the same thing. I found the format /p:x command in the cmd prompt, but that keeps saying the drive got disconnected and had to stop. (I'm hooking the drives up with a USB adapter, so some sort of inactivity?) Any other free windows methods/programs that will do this? Without having to reboot into dos as well? I don't want to sit around my PC and not be able to do anything. Just need to make sure all the data is gone.

 

[NocturnalPing]

Try Darik's Boot And Nuke (DBAN) http://www.dban.org/

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hi 4745454b.

Try DISKPART, although it's via CMD again, you never know it might do the trick:
1. Open CMD as administrator
2. Type diskpart and press "enter"
3. Type list disk and press "enter"
4. Type select disk X and press "enter" (where "X" is the number of the drive you wish to select)
5. Type clean and press "enter" (alternatively you can type clean all which is the full erase option and it should make everything irrecoverable by normal means and data recovery software)

Hope that helps. Cheers!
Boogieman_WD

 

[4745454b]

Dban came up in my search, but I read you had to load it onto a USB stick, reboot, etc. That doesn't work. Need something that works in windows so I can still read the news, play video games, reach people online, play video games, etc.

Diskpart didn't come up in my search, I'll check it out. Thanks Boogie.

edit: Ran it, but it went way to fast. No way it's zeroed. Do something wrong?

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Probably not. If the drive had to be initialized afterwards. It sounds like you've run it with "clean", try "clean all" this should take a lot of time since it zeros each sector individually, so the larger the drive, the longer it should take. Note that it would appear as if it's not doing anything, but wait for you to see the message "DiskPart succeeded in cleaning the disk."

 

[4745454b]

Ok, I'll try that once I'm back in town with the drive. I did run clean. Clean all sounded like it was going to do all the drives. But it won't do that because only one drive has focus right?

 

[Boogieman_WD]

That's right. Basically when you type "select disk X" you get the message "disk X is now the selected disk". This means that typing the command "clean all" applies only to that drive. The difference is that (as I've mentioned) clean all is a thorough process and goes to each individual sector of the drive (I know I've mentioned it but you'll have to prepare for hours of waiting if the drive is large) and overwrites it with a zero and clean simply marks the data as being deleted and is not overwritten. You can check that out for more info: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/52129-disk-clean-clean-all-diskpart-command.html.

 

[4745454b]

Well I have to sleep sometime so I'll set it up tonight to run and I'll check on it tomorrow morning. I work tomorrow as well so if I need to leave going still I'll be ok.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

Active@ KillDisk will do what you want. There are both free and paid versions.

http://www.killdisk.com/

 

[aquielisunari]

https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download's drive wiper can do that 1 time or 3 or 7 or 35 times. You can select the level of overwrite within that program.