If your concerned with data being read or recovered from your hard drive after it is sold or given away, we recommend trying the following utilities. These utilities remove all your existing data and make it impossible to be recovered or read. After your data is erased or overwritten, you can then reinstall Windows or another operating system.

  • How to format a hard drive, SSD, or USB flash drive.
  • How to erase my hard drive and start over?

If you have an OEM computer (e.g., Acer, Dell, Hewlett Packard, etc.), the hard drive may have a hidden system recovery partition. Using the utilities below may erase this partition, making it impossible to restore your computer without a disc.

  • How to securely delete files with SDelete.
  • How to erase my hard drive and start over?
  • How to securely delete a computer file.
  • To securely delete files in Linux, see the Linux shred command.
  • See our erase and zero fill definitions for further information and related links.
  • Hard drive help and support.