[SOLVED] What is the best free utility that can reliably and securely wipe a drive?

[Oxidane]

Essentially I want to completely wipe my old hard drive, thus making any previous data stored on it to be unrecoverable. What is the most reliable (and free) utility that can answer my needs?

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

Assuming it's an HDD, Eraser is the one I prefer: https://eraser.heidi.ie/

 

[Oxidane]

Assuming it's an HDD, Eraser is the one I prefer: https://eraser.heidi.ie/

Honestly, when I said "I want to completely wipe my old hard drive", I actually didn't mean that. I want to securely wipe several old drives which include HDDs, SSDs, and USB drives. Oh, and I want to wipe a micro SD card as well.

So I take it this "Eraser" tool is only good for HDDs? Do you have any suggestions on what I can use for SSDs, USB drives, and a micro SD card?

 

[CountMike]

Honestly, when I said "I want to completely wipe my old hard drive", I actually didn't mean that. I want to securely wipe several old drives which include HDDs, SSDs, and USB drives. Oh, and I want to wipe a micro SD card as well.

So I take it this "Eraser" tool is only good for HDDs? Do you have any suggestions on what I can use for SSDs, USB drives, and a micro SD card?

If those storage devices are for own use deleting and recreating partitions and formatting them should be quite enough. If it's for sale or giving them away same thing but encrypt contents before.
For HDDs, https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/active_killdisk.html with couple of passes. Can also be used on SSDs and USB dongles just sparingly as it introduces a lot of writing shortening their useful life. For even more extreme security, short of physically destroying them, encrypt data first. After that rescuing any useful data from them can happen in movies only.

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

Honestly, when I said "I want to completely wipe my old hard drive", I actually didn't mean that.

Had you mentioned that in your first post I wouldn't have wasted my time suggesting Eraser -- it's only for HDDs.
Might I respectfully suggest you say what you actually mean in future ? You are then more likely to get useful & relevant replies.

 

[USAFRet]

For SSD - Whatever Secure Erase function is provided by the manufacturer.
For HDD - DBAN

 

[Oxidane]

Had you mentioned that in your first post I wouldn't have wasted my time suggesting Eraser -- it's only for HDDs.
Might I respectfully suggest you say what you actually mean in future ? You are then more likely to get useful & relevant replies.

Yeah, my bad. Honestly I didn't realize they all required different methods to securely erase them. Sorry for wasting your time.