It’s a powerful erasure tool but is not built for minimalists as the software is highly complex and not user-friendly.

EraserĮraser is a free, open-source data destruction tool that lets you safely destroy data and wipe the external hard drive with the help of various data destruction algorithms. Please note that I included an extra section for SSDs at the end. The following are five different methods to wipe an external hard drive (HDD) using Windows 10. Thus, actual data remains on the drive and can be recovered with a basic data recovery tool by the person who is re-using the drive. Only the pointer or entry from the index table in the File System is removed. Further, wiping is necessary since deletion or formatting does not actually destroy the data from a storage device. Wiping is the most preferred way of data destruction when compared to physical destruction or degaussing, which does the same job but at a much higher expense and also generates a ton of e-waste. Wiping a hard drive means destroying the data from the hard drive permanently by overwriting with a pattern of 0’s and 1’s.

Dban to usb