Physically dismantle it with a screwdriver. A rare earth magnet, like the neodymium magnet, can be used to deform the metal plates in the hard disk. This makes it unusable. One warning: The magnets are powerful and can cause physical harm if used incorrectly. A safer method might be using a screwdriver to dismantle the pieces of the hard drive to make it useless.
But when you discard your device without properly wiping the hard drive, you run the risk of losing your data. They could sell the information on the dark web. Cybercriminals can buy the information and launch cyberattacks to commit other kinds of crimes like identity theft and extortion. They could open bank accounts in your name, purchase items with your credit card information, or take out loans and default on them, leaving you with the consequences.
Thieves also look for private and confidential information. This may include non-disclosure agreements, personal photographs, private chat conversations, and other details you may not want to expose. No matter what kind of data you had on your computer before you decided to donate or recycle it, it pays to play it safe. It only means its location is available. Data recovery software can easily find those files in your hard drive.
Here are a few ways to wipe your hard drive like the pros and avoid the risk of someone accessing your old data. Every file that has been deleted now has the new number assigned to it. This makes it impossible for data recovery tools to access it. This tool is useful if you plan to sell, donate, or recycle your computer or laptop. A sure way to completely destroy the hard drive is to make it physically impossible to access the disks. This can be done by dismantling the pieces of the hard disk with a screwdriver and using a hammer to scratch and mangle the disk.
The goal is to make sure the disk will not work when it is loaded into another hard drive. A powerful rare earth magnet can also be used to destroy the platter in the hard drive.
Your PC is likely packed with personal files. Norton Utilities is a handy tool that keeps your PC running like new.
It fixes common issues that slow down or crash your PC. It also frees up space by finding duplicate files and unused applications. Safely dispose of personal documents, so no one can access them. Think of it as a digital shredder. Norton Utilities helps keep what you do on your computer private.
It can permanently erase all record of your computer and web-based activities to help protect your privacy. It also safely disposes of personal documents permanently and renders them inaccessible. Most of all, it maintains your digital privacy by erasing your recently opened files and website browsing history.
All rights reserved. External Hard Drive is a great device to back up the data from your computer and free some space. These hard drives offer portability and make the data transfer between computers easy. At certain times you may have some confidential or personal data on the external hard drive, which you may want removed once you don't have the use for it.
You may consider to delete or format your external hard drive, but you may know know that delete everything doesn't erase hard drive and formatting also does not erase data. The deleted or formatted data is still recoverable. If you wish to free up some space on your external hard drive, but do not wish to erase all the data saved on it, you can delete the files manually. In that case, you will need to select and delete the files manually.
Deleting a file or files is easy. If you need to delete a single file, simply click it and press 'Delete' button on your keyboard. You can also right click on the file and choose 'Delete' option. You will need to click Ok on the confirmation window that will pop up in both the cases.
In case you need to delete multiple files saved on the same folder, you can press and hold CTRL while selecting the files. You can also select multiple files by holding down the left click of the file while dragging the pointer over a specific area of the window. Files you have deleted are still remain on your external hard drive and can be recovered by 19 free data recovery softwares. If you simply wish to wipe your external hard drive clean so that you can have access to the full storage space it offers, you can format it using a very simple process.
Formatting the hard drive takes care of any fragmentation issues as well and also speeds it up. Sometimes you may need a formatted hard drive for special purposes to use with certain applications or operating systems. Make sure that your external hard disk drive is connected to the computer and follow these steps to format it:.
After installing MiniTool Partition Wizard on your computer and registering to a paid edition, you can follow the steps below to back up your hard drive. Step 1 : Prepare a storage device like USB drive and external hard drive that is large enough to save all the data on your disk, and connect it to your computer. Step 3 : Right-click your system disk and hit Copy.
You can also choose Copy Disk feature from the left pane after selecting the disk. Step 4 : Choose the connected storage device as the target disk and click Next to continue. Step 5 : Choose Copy Options and configure the layout of the copied disk according to your needs, and click Next button. Step 6 : Read the message about how to boot from the new disk and click Finish button to back to the main interface.
Step 7 : Click Appy button to execute all the pending operations. After backing up your data, you can disconnect the external storage device and go to remove files and clean the drive without any worries. I have kept my personal data with MiniTool Partition Wizard and fully cleaned my disk. Click to tweet. When you are experiencing certain issues that prevent your Windows from running properly, it is a nice choice to reset Windows with cleaning the system drive.
As mentioned in Case 1, you have to back up your data in advance, but this may be not enough in this case. Most system issues are likely to cause data loss on your hard drive. So, you need to restore data before cleaning the drive.
You can also use MiniTool Partition Wizard to achieve this goal. Step 1 : After launching the program, select the system partition and choose Data Recovery feature in the left Action Panel. Step 2 : Wait for the scanning process to finish. Select the data you need and click Save button. If you can access the desktop normally, just refer to the steps in Case 1 to perform the action.
But if you are unable to log into your account or operate in desktop normally, you might need to reset Windows 10 in Windows Recovery Environment. To do that, you need to:. Step 1 : Download Windows 10 Media Creation Tool and create an installation media on a normal computer.
Step 2 : Boot from the installation media and click Next. In next page, click Repair your computer to enter Recovery Environment. Step 5 : Click Reset button to confirm the operation.
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