How to erase hard drive data completely clean for free
Wipe or erase hard drive data completely clean with the free Active Kill Disk. This software is available as both a free and a pro version.Utilities like Active Kill Disk are very useful and a must have software for windows users (especially enterprise and business users of windows) to ensure data security by preventing its leakage.
When you delete a file in windows, the OS merely deletes the handle to the file so that users will not be able to retrieve the file directly.However the file is still retained in the hard drive and it can be retrieved using good data recovery softwares.It must be noted that even formatting a disk does not delete data or files completely.
When using the FORMAT command on Windows, you may receive the following message.
Important: Formatting a disk removes all information from the disk.
In reality, the FORMAT utility actually creates new FAT and ROOT tables, leaving all other existing data on the disk untouched! Moreover, an image of the replaced FAT and ROOT tables is also backed up, so that the UNFORMAT command can be used to restore them.In addition, FDISK utility merely cleans the Partition Table (located in the drive’s first sector) and does not do anything else.
Thus, data can be retrieved from your hard drive or disk using sophisticated data recovery softwares.Hence, to ensure that data is completely wiped or erased from the hard drive, it is recommended to use good hard drive erase utilities like Active Kill Disk.
Features of Free Hard Drive Erase Utility Active Kill Disk
- Detects and displays information about all partitions, hard disks and floppy drives currently connected to your computer
- Wipes out all floppies and hard disk drives completely by secure overwriting data on physical level using [One Pass Zeros] data destruction method
- Erases partitions, logical drives and even not used disk space
- Erasing report is created and can be saved as a file
- Supports SSD, IDE, SATA and SCSI drives
- Supports larger than 128GB hard disks via using LBA(LBA48) mode to access drive’s data
- File systems (FAT, FAT32,NTFS, etc) on the drive do not matter, detected physical drive is erased using low-level disk access
- Double confirmation excludes possibility of accidental erasing of data on a drive
- Very easy to use, utility has intuitive console interface and command line mode for the advanced users
- Works on any system capable of boot from floppy in DOS mode
- Utility is so compact that can be placed on bootable diskette and used from it. You do not even need to boot from the hard drive to destroy it
- Cleans hard drive, floppies, etc.
- FREE product updates from the Web
Download the free Active Kill Disk from here and double-click KILLDISK-SETUP.EXE. Follow the instructions on the installation wizard to install it.
How to erase hard drive data and files with free Active killdisk?
- 1. Start the Active KILLDISK for windows from the Active KillDisk Free suite menu item on the Programs menu. The Detected Physical Devices screen appears.
All system physical devices and logical partitions are displayed in a list.Hard drive devices are numbered by the system BIOS. A system with a single hard drive shows as number 0. Subsequent hard drive devices are numbered consecutively. For example the second device will be shown as Hard Disk - 2. Select a drive and read the detailed information about the drive on the right pane. Below the drive, select a logical partition. The information on the right pane changes.
- To scroll up and down, use the keyboard arrow keys, PAGE UP, PAGE DOWN, HOME and END navigation keys, or use the related buttons on the toolbar. To jump to a specific sector, in the Sector box, type the sector number and press ENTER or click Go on the toolbar. When you are satisfied with the identification of the drive, press ESC to close this screen.
To preview the files in a logical partition, select the partition and press ENTER. KillDisk scans the MFT records for the partition. The Folders and Files screen appears.
- Press TAB to move between panels or choose a panel with the mouse. To select an item in the list, use PAGE DOWN, PAGE UP or the up or down arrow keys or use the mouse. To open a folder, double-click the folder or select it and press ENTER.
KillDisk scans the MFT records for this folder. The files in the folder appear in the right panel. Existing files and folders marked by yellow icons and deleted files and folders marked by gray icons. Note that if you are wiping data (read about wiping data below) from unoccupied areas, the gray-colored file names are removed after the wiping process completes. You may use Data Viewer to inspect the work done by the wiping process. After wiping, the data in these areas and the place these files hold in the root records or MFT records are gone.
- 4. When you have selected the device to erase, select the check-box for this hard drive. To permanently erase all data on the selected partition, press F10 or click Kill on the toolbar. The Kill dialog box appears. Choose an erase method from the drop-down list. Set all other parameters for erasing. Click Start.
That is it!!! The application will wipe out or erase hard disk data. If there are any errors, for example due to bad clusters, they will be reported on the Interactive screen. If such a message appears, you may cancel the operation (by pressing ESC), or you may continue erasing data.
How to wipe hard drive data and files with free Active killdisk?
You can also wipe data in unoccupied areas on selected logical drives using Active Kill Disk! The steps here are almost the same as erasing data from hard drive. To wipe data, you will have to choose the device and press F9 or click Wipe and a Wipe Free Disk Space dialog appears. you may then choose a wipe methods, wipe parameters and then click Start to start wiping data on the hard drive.
Enjoy the free tool to erase hard drive or wipe hard drive on your PC completely clean!!!
