Wiping a Drive

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated January 13, 2020)

1

If you've been using Windows for quite some time, you may be familiar with the command prompt and some of the commands you can use there. If you are using Windows 8 or Windows 10, you may not be familiar with a change made to a familiar command: format.

Starting in Windows 8, the format command now allows you to use the /p switch, which causes the command to not only format a drive, but also to perform as many passes on the data surface as you want. Multiple passes decrease the likelihood that someone could successfully retrieve information that used to be on the drive. If you plan on giving the drive to someone else and you previously had information on the drive you don't want them to potentially recover, then using the /p switch is a good idea.

As an example, let's say that you had an external drive (F:) that you want to give to someone else. After you've copied all the information from the drive, you can display the command prompt window (as discussed in other WindowsTips) and then use this command:

format f: /p:5

This command performs 5 formatting passes. While this may take a while to complete, the process makes the probability of anyone accessing old information vanishingly small. (It sure beats the old way I used to make sure nobody could access data on a drive I no longer needed: Hitting it multiple times with a three-pound sledgehammer.)

 This tip (2596) applies to Windows 8 and 10.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Inserting the Template Name in Your Document

Templates are a powerful part of the Word experience, as they allow you to create and format documents based on patterns. ...

Discover More

Getting Rid of Extra Spaces at the End of a Footnote

If you use Find and Replace to get rid of trailing spaces in a paragraph, you may have noticed that it doesn't work ...

Discover More

Workbook not Saving

Having trouble saving a workbook? It could have to do with the age, size, and complexity of that workbook. This tip ...

Discover More
More WindowsTips

Freeing Up Disk Space by Deleting Old OS Files

I'm always looking for ways to free up disk space. Even with a 1 TB drive I want to be a "good disk citizen." If you're ...

Discover More

Using Powercfg to Change the Active Power Scheme

You can easily change which power scheme is active by using the SetActive switch. This tip shows you how.

Discover More

Generating a Power Efficiency Diagnostics Report

Your computer uses power to operate, and Windows has a great impact on how much power it uses. You can use a hidden ...

Discover More
Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is three more than 1?

2020-01-13 10:21:42

J. Woolley

You might be interested in Disk Wipe: http://www.diskwipe.org/


Newest Tips