Decent program that does the job with minimal fuss. It did randomly quit the other day in the middle of a job, which I luckily checked on it and noticed, though I'm not sure if that was Eraser's or Windows' fault. As some others have mentioned (complained about), it does take a long time, but that's just the nature of what it's doing, and all programs are going to be slow; if they're not, they're not doing a good job. I tried several others, and they ranged from horrible to ok. Of them, one or two would probably be suitable replacements for this one if it were to stop working, but I would say Eraser is probably the best interface and it's free, portable, and can do files, free space, and entire drives. The only thing I don't like about it is the lack of parallelization, i.e. being able to wipe multiple drives simultaneously. I see no good reason why that shouldn't be possible, and searching the forums it seemed the dev intended to add it in v6, but that was years ago and it's now on v6.2. I signed up on the forum to inquire about it, but then couldn't post, so that was a massive waste of time. To the devs, in case you read this: don't use a forum for support then not let people post in it (shouldn't need to be said, but there it is). To anyone looking to do multiple drives that happens to read this: as I said, I tried several programs, and none of them will do it except one, which you have to buy. What I ended up doing is setting up a VM with DBAN and assigning the drives I wanted to wipe to the VM. DBAN wipes multiple drives in parallel, but doing it in a VM allows for the computer to continue being used instead of being tied up for days, and it also ensures DBAN can only see the drives you want to wipe, so it helps prevent mistakes.
It takes many, many hours to delete the unused space on a 500GB drive. If your drive is 1TB or larger and your time is worth anything, it will be faster and cheaper to copy the files to be kept to a new drive and destroy the old drive. Contrary to the information given here, the forum is useless for support. You will be forced to create a 10-character password for the forum account -- does the admin think we only have one forum account or that we should be forced to store and retrieve thousands of passwords for sites that don't have any sensitive information? -- only to find that 'you have insufficient privileges to post' a question, so there is no support there. And all of the links in the FAQ topics I was interested in (erasing free space) are broken.
Very robust software, quick and easy setup and professional feel at runtime. A bit tricky to configure, consider adding a quick start Add Task at first startup (at least) so users don't have to hunt for the Add Task option (not hard to find, just counter-intuitive)
Nice.
- Hard Drive Eraser Pc Download Free
- Hard Drive Eraser Software Download
- Free Hard Drive Wipe Software Download
Looking to sell an old computer and want to wipe the hard drive clean before you sell it? Whatever your reason may be, there are lots of programs out there that can help you to not only erase the data on a hard drive, but erase it in such a way that it can never be recovered again. If you have a lot of sensitive information, perform a secure wipe of your hard drive is highly recommended.
A secure wipe basically performs a low-level format so that the entire disk is overwritten with 0’s. Other software will write junk data multiple times over the disk so that there is no trace of what was there before. Either way, no one is going to be able to get the original data off the hard drive because it’ll be completely gone.
In this post, I’ll mention five fairly popular programs that you can use to really erase a hard disk properly. There are so many good free programs, that it’s really not necessary to spend any money on doing something like wiping a hard drive. You’ll pretty much get the same results using freeware.
- Hard Drive Eraser Software is an advantageous data deletion utility that helps users to delete data without worries it can also be recovered later on. This protects identity and prevents any misuse of information on the disk. Space is overwritten by different patterns. Here we have provided a reviewed list of the best hard drive erasing software that will efficiently do the trick.
- Hard Drive Eraser Software is an advantageous data deletion utility that helps users to delete data without worries it can also be recovered later on. This protects identity and prevents any misuse of information on the disk. Space is overwritten by different patterns. Here we have provided a reviewed list of the best hard drive erasing software that will efficiently do the trick.
- Download Eraser for free. A security tool to remove sensitive data from your Windows hard drive. Eraser is a secure data removal tool for Windows. It completely removes sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns.
- Wipe your data with EaseUS free hard drive erasing software. EaseUS free partition manager is the best software to erase or wipe hard drive or partition. It allows you to completely erase ALL hard drive or external storage information including your personal data, programs, viruses, and malware.
Eraser is an advanced security tool for Windows which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns.
DBan (Darik’s Boot and Nuke)
This is probably the most popular program and is basically a self-contained boot disk. Create a bootable CD using CDBurnerXP or whatever burning program you like and boot to the CD when prompted after restarting your computer.
You can choose from different wipe methods including Gutmann Wipe, Department of Defense Short and Medium and others. I’ve used this program several times and have found that it does an excellent job erasing data on many different types of hard drives. If, for some reason, DBan does not work for you, you can try out the other programs mentioned below.
KillDisk
KillDisk comes in two flavors: Free and Professional. The professional version is definitely better than DBan in terms of options, but it’s not worth shelling out $40 or $50. The free version only has one way to delete the data on a hard drive (erasing with one-pass zeroes), but it’s still good enough for a decent hard drive wipe. Definitely DBan is better since you can use the DoD 5220.22-M protocol.
If you do purchase the program, then you have a great set of 17 choices for deleting your data:
You can use the program from within Windows directly, via DOS or use bootable media so you can wipe any disk whether it was running Windows, Linux, OS X, etc. If you need to erase a large number of disks, it might be worth the monetary investment, otherwise you’re good with the free version.
Hard Drive Eraser Pc Download Free
Disk Wipe
Another good freeware app is Disk Wipe. The only downside is that it is a Windows app, so you have to run it from within an already existing operating system, whereas the other two mentioned above can be booted to using a CD or floppy disk. And since it’s a Windows app, it can really only erase hard drives that are Windows formatted (NTFS, FAT32, FAT, etc).
However, if that is not a problem for you, then the program is great! It’s portable and doesn’t require any installation, so you can carry it around on a USB stick or just email it to yourself. It can wipe hard drives, memory sticks, SD cards, etc.
It also supports the advanced algorithms like DoD 5220-22.M, US Army, and Peter Guttman.
Eraser
Another program that is similar to Disk Wipe is Eraser. The software is open-source and is routinely updated. The latest version supports Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008. Again, the downside is that it only supports the Windows operating system and can only erase the data on drives that support Windows.
Hard Drive Eraser Software Download
Eraser does not support as many advanced algorithms as the other programs mentioned above and is therefore not the best option if you really need to securely erase your hard drive. It’s a free option and does the job, but there is more risk using this program.
HDD Low Level Format Tool
This program is free, but has a speed cap on it, which is around 180GB per hour. If you spend a whopping $3, you can get the program without any speed cap. It supports SATA, IDE, SCSI, SAS, USB and Firewire drives, which is nice.
Again, like the last two mentioned, it only supports the Windows operating system, so if you have a hard drive from a different operating system, you’ll have to plug it into the Windows PC you are using.
Overall, your best options are DBan and KillDisk for really getting just about any hard drive wiped with the highest level of security. If those don’t work for you or the cost is too much, you can try any of the other three programs mentioned.
Free Hard Drive Wipe Software Download
Is there a program that you use to wipe data securely? If so, post a comment here and let us know. Enjoy!