Windows 10: Fully clean the drive

I've been fully cleaning the drive for about 12 hours now and it's been stuck at the same percentage for ages as I left it over night is there anyway I can check to speed up the process or check if it's not even working anymore thanks

:)

 

Windows 10 Reset and "Fully Clean The Drive" on SSD

Hi,

I have a quick question about the "Fully Clean The Drive" option for Windows 10...

I have read that if you are planning on selling your computer you should reset Windows 10 and select 'Fully Clean The Drive'. I have read this is 'similar' to running format.exe c:\ /P:0, which would overwrite the whole drive
with zeros, making data recovery from a traditional HDD pretty much impossible.

My questions are

1) What exactly does fully clean the drive do? Does it overwrite the WHOLE drive or just delete user files and overwrite the free space? Because if it were to overwrite the whole drive how could it reinstall windows because there
would be no remaining data on the drive.

2) How does fully clean the drive work on SSD's? A single overwrite on a SSD would not be sufficient to sanitise the drive unless a TRIM command was also issued. Would fully clean the drive issue a TRIM command?

I guess my main question is how likely is it you can recover user data after you 'fully clean the drive' on an SSD?

Thank you in advance!

 

Windows 10 infinite restart black screen


The tutorials provided are just a list of troubleshooting steps. Use only the steps which apply to you.

Since none of the troubleshooting steps here worked, I'd suggest you do a Clean install.

John

 

Windows 10 Reset and "Fully Clean The Drive" on SSD

@Ratandeep

Many thanks for your link. However, it appears that I have not been clear. I understand how TRIM works with SSDs.

What I was looking for was an answer to both the questions from the OP but, especially the second. For clarity, I shall reiterate (directly from the OP's post:

1) What exactly does fully clean the drive do? Does it overwrite the WHOLE drive or just delete user files and overwrite the free space? Because if it were to overwrite the whole drive how could it reinstall windows because there
would be no remaining data on the drive.

2) How does fully clean the drive work on SSD's? A single overwrite on a SSD would not be sufficient to sanitise the drive unless a TRIM command was also issued. Would fully clean the drive issue a TRIM command?

Personally, I would want to run TRIM rather than overwrite a WHOLE SSD but that's just me.

What I REALLY want to know is How does fully clean the drive work on SSDs and would it issue the TRIM command?

Regards

Joe.