old hard drive

[maybelucas123]

Hi, I have an old HDD that has Windows 7 on it. I want to completely wipe the hard drive of Windows and all its files, but not destroying it.
Any help?

 

[Johnabcs1]

Well, You could put it into a PC and Wipe it like that, or you can always go to a PC repair store and ask them to wipe it.

 

[maybelucas123]

Well, You could put it into a PC and Wipe it like that, or you can always go to a PC repair store and ask them to wipe it.

Thanks!

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there maybelucas123,

Is this a secondary or a primary drive?

You can use some third party tools in order to write zeros on it: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-1711997/software-wipe-hdds.html
This is a process that will fill in 0 value in each sector and the data would be unrecoverable.

If this is an OS drive, then you may need to attach the HDD to another system, as a secondary one and run the tool.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD

 

[maybelucas123]

Hi there maybelucas123,

Is this a secondary or a primary drive?

You can use some third party tools in order to write zeros on it: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-1711997/software-wipe-hdds.html
This is a process that will fill in 0 value in each sector and the data would be unrecoverable.

If this is an OS drive, then you may need to attach the HDD to another system, as a secondary one and run the tool.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD

This is a secondary, my primary is an SSD. Thanks for the link! Except that, at the moment the HDD is the only drive with an OS on it. So if I were to clear it then I would have no OS to load the program :/ Could I use another computer to wipe the HDD, connect it then get a new OS.

 

[D_Know_WD]

Yes, you can do that. You can attach the drive either internally with SATA and power cables or externally (SATA to USB adapter + power cord) to another computer and wipe it.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD

 

[maybelucas123]

Yes, you can do that. You can attach the drive either internally with SATA and power cables or externally (SATA to USB adapter + power cord) to another computer and wipe it.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD

Ok thanks

 

[DR_Luke]

A few free ways to erase a hard drive that my data recovery lab uses every day.

1. linux dd (or ddrescue) - we copy /dev/zero to the hard where it will write zeroes to every sector until it runs out of sectors
2. MHDD (from hddguru) - we use the ERASE command to zero out the drive and the SCAN command to test every sector