Windows 10: How to wipe a hard drive clean?

Hey there mates.

I'm currently in the process of building a new computer and am aiming to nuke my old hard drive due to the fact that I'll be using it as a sort of secondary drive for the bulk of items, but I'll be using a new SSD as the drive that contains the OS. On top of that, I know you are probably thinking that I should just move the OS from my HDD to my SSD, but I sort of acquired the Win 10 OS on my HDD from a less than ethical source, so it sort of has quite a few bugs in it that I can't seem to exterminate.

TL;DR: How do I wipe a hard drive, OS and all, and still have it used as a secondary drive?

:)

 

How to wipe hard drive clean in upgraded version of Windows 10 Pro

Hi Daffy,

The main purpose of resetting Windows 10 is to delete all personal files and reset the settings. Also, all apps that were installed will be deleted.

You will end up with a clean slate regardless of recent versions of Windows on your laptop—everything is cleaned out, including any possibly existing partitions.

For more information on options when resetting your laptop, please visit this
article and head over to the
Reset your PC section.

Let us know if you have more questions.

 

How to wipe hard drive clean in upgraded version of Windows 10 Pro

Thanks. I really have one simple question -- if I bought the computer with Windows 8 Professional operating system why did it not go back to that? After my factory restore, it remained at the updated Windows 10 Professional, even though, as you pointed
out, all my files and apps disappeared.

 

Formatting will usually do the trick, but sometimes........little pieces may be left. I've always used Dariks Boot and Nuke. Works like a charm and its free.

Darik's Boot and Nuke download | SourceForge.net

 

Even though this Tech Republic story is almost 4 years old, it remains a reasonably good source of pointers to utilities useful to your concerns: Five Hard Disk Cleaning and Erasing Tools.
HTH,
--Ed--

 

MiniTool Partition Wizard (which is also on Kyhi's recovery drive) has an option to wipe a hard drive by writing 0s, 1s or combination thereof to all the physical sectors on the hard drive:
Best Free Partition Manager for Windows | MiniTool Partition Free

Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk

 

I use DBAN every time, its a great tool and has never failed to get the job done %100 every time *Smile

 

Thanks for the tip.

 

As you boot from DBAN it will look for Drives to wipe so its a good idea to disconnect all drives apart from the Drive you want to wipe *Smile