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How to Permanently Delete Files from External Hard Drive without Recovery
Admin | data wipe Featured How to's Software Technology | 5 minutes read | Last updated on February 8th, 2023,
Summary : This blog post will give you insights about the importance of permanently deleting files from your PC’s external hard disk. You will also be introduced to CubexSoft Data Wipe Software – a fool-proof solution to help you understand how to permanently delete files from external hard drive without recovery. The tool is especially designed to erase contents of your hard drive without any traces and maintain data privacy and security.
A computer hard disk or any other devices’ hard disk drive consists of numerous amounts of data which includes both personal as well as professional details. data, in any format, is our personal belonging which we don’t want to share with anyone. And to make this happen we tend to delete data from it. But you what, even after hard deleting (deleting data using Shift + Delete) data will not permanently remove data from your hard drive. It can be easily recovered using some Data Recovery Software. Therefore, you need some better solution to resolve this problem. But first let us know :
Why Wiping External Hard Drive is Essential?
Data Privacy is Crucial : When hard drives reach the end of their life terms and you have decided to discard them off. It is better to wipe it off to make it unavailable for unauthorized access. This stands true for actively used hard drives too, just formatting them is not enough. You need to erase all its data permanently to make them reusable again. Erasing hard drive data permanently without recovery will help you maintain data privacy, as no data is left for hackers/ unwanted users to access data unauthorisedly.
Virus Attacks : When your hard drive comes under attack of ransomware or any other virus, its data becomes inaccessible to you. The only solution to this problem is to erase its entire data permanently and get rid of the virus.
How to Erase Data from Hard Disk Permanently – Know Different Methods
The following section will help you understand various methods for understanding how to permanently delete files on pc without recovery.
Method #1 : Use PC Settings
For deleting data from your external hard drive, first you need to attach it to your system and then delete all its data, one by one. Go to the File Explorer >> choose the External hard drive icon >> Right Click on the selected file/folder and hit Delete button.
Otherwise, you can also format your external hard drive to wipe data from it. From the File Explorer, select the hard drive >> Right Click on it >> choose Format.
Method #2 : Use Command Prompt (CMD) to Delete External Hard Drive Data
You can also delete files and folders from your external hard drive via Command Prompt. Follow these steps to perform the same :
Open Run command using Windows Logo + R Keys
In the Run window that appears, enter CMD and press Enter
In the CMD Window, write diskpart and hit Enter
Next write list disk
Now write select disk # to select external hard drive (# denotes the name/number of your PC’s hard disk drives)
Enter Clean All to clear all data from selected hard disk drive
Method #3 : Erase Data from Hard Disk Permanently using Data Wipe Tool
Merely deleting your files from your hard drive doesn’t make it fool-proof enough to be unable to trace digital footprints of the data stored in it. Using any data recovery software, anyone can easily recover data from it and use it for unauthorized purpose.
A Data Wipe Tool is preferred here to delete data from hard drive permanently without any possibility of data recovery. A data erasure software overwrites (once or twice or many times) on the files that you want to erase. Consequently, the files become incomprehensible and irrecoverable for any data recovery software. This is known as data erasure without digital footprints and only expert data wiping software is capable of doing that.
Data Wipe Software to Permanently Delete External Hard Drive Files/Folders
CubexSoft Data Wipe Tool is a recommended utility that holds the efficiency of wiping complete data from external hard drives. The software provides efficient way of destroying your data purposedly and barring everyone from unauthorizedly using it and making it unavailable for them. The tool is simple to use and provides 10+ data wiping options to choose from. The utility is well-capable of erasing files/folders as well as logical drive data permanently.
Let’s have a look at some of the highlighting features of the software
DIY solution to erase hard disk Data permanently
Leaves no data trace and eliminates all chances of date recovery
Remove file/folders alongwith logical drives data
Provides 10+ data wipe options
Various advance filters are provided to erase only selected files data items
Suitable for all Windows OS editions, including Windows 11
Creates complete log report of the data wiping process
How to Permanently Delete Files from External Hard Drive – Complete Guide
First download and install data wipe software on your PC.
Choose the Files/Folders option to erase specific files or Logical Drives option to clean logical drive.
Select the required files/folder data that you want to erase from the listed hierarchy
Set required filters from the filters tab
Now choose data wiping options and click on Wipe button
A warning message will appear. Click on OK to start the data erasure process and view its live status
On successful completion, a new message window opens with the message “Data Wipe process successfully completed”.
Conclusion
Our system as well as external hard drives are our crucial assets. They consist of our confidential/sensitive personal information. And for many users, they simply act as a backbone for their business as they hold complete data backup of their PC/laptop. Through this blog, we have discussed about why it is important to permanently erase external hard drive data and solution for the same. We have also explored about CubexSoft Data Wipe Software and learnt how to permanently delete files from external hard drive.
