How to securely wipe a hard drive on Windows 10 & 11

If you want to permanently erase the data on your hard drive or SSD, whether for the purpose of selling or recycling, follow this set of instructions on how to wipe a computer securely. 

Securely wiping your hard drive or SSD erases all the data. This process is necessary, above all, for maintaining information security. 

Simply deleting data or reformatting the drive leaves enough information to make the data recoverable using certain tools. If you have partitioned your drive, be sure to securely wipe the data in all the partitions. You can also delete extra partitions you don’t need. 

You may also wish to migrate existing data on your drive. In that case, follow the process outlined below.   

Warning: The process of wiping your hard drive or SSD will delete all your data and make it unrecoverable, so first copy the data you want to save to another drive. If you have a cloud account, such as iCloud, OneDrive®, Dropbox, or Google Drive, you can copy your data there if you have enough space.   

An external storage drive is also convenient if you don’t have a cloud account. If you are wiping your drive in preparation for replacing it, you can move your data to your new portable storage drive.  

If you’re going to be using a solid state drive, you will also want to transfer data from your existing drive to your new SSD. Find out more about backing up your existing data to an external drive.  

If you’re using Windows 10 or 11, wiping your hard drive or SSD is easy. The process is almost the same on both operating systems.  

To erase a drive on Windows 10 and 11, follow these steps:   

1. Go to Settings, System and then Recovery. Next, click Reset PC.
2. When asked which information you want to erase, select Remove everything.
3. Choose Local reinstall to reinstall Windows from the device. If this is not possible, select Cloud download.
4. In the Additional settings section, enable the Clean data button.
5. Finally, click Next and Reset to start the process. 
   

1. Select Settings (the gear icon on the Start menu)
2. Select Update & security, then Recovery
3. Choose Remove everything, then Remove files and clean the drive
4. Then click Next, Reset, and Continue 
   

If you’re using Windows 7 or earlier, you need to download third-party software to thoroughly wipe your hard drive or SSD.   

It’s also important to use software that meets the US DoD 5220.22-M requirements for sanitizing a drive. Using this kind of software will take several hours or more, depending on how much data you have on your drive.  

If you’re selling or recycling your hard drive or SSD, it’s best to be safe and securely erase all of your data so it cannot be recovered, accessed or viewed.