If you think erasing hard drive is deleting all the data on it, it's totally wrong! Neither deleting partitions nor formatting partitions make the data irrecoverable, it just makes the data hard to be found rather than wiping them completely. When you finish the backup, you could begin wiping. Thus, you can use a third-party tool to back up like cloning your hard drive to an external hard drive. To copy your computer, it's not recommended to use the built-in feature to create a system image backup because when you wipe your hard drive, it will wipe out any local backups you may have. Since we have said the erased data will not be restored, you should create a backup of your files for yourself so that you can use it on another device in the future. Thus, the following content will give you a secure and practical way to erase all the data on your hard drive. Actually, you couldn't just use a hammer to damage it physically, because you have to leave the device healthy and available for the next owner. How to wipe computer hard drive before selling?Īfter having a basic understanding of the importance of wiping disks before selling, let's come to the most crucial part: how to wipe hard drive to sell computer. Therefore, you'd better erase hard drive before selling to make sure your important data won't be stolen or used by bad people. If you forget to wipe any data on your hard drive and then sell your computer to others, you may face the risk of information leakage, which may bring some severe problems for you. This is because if the data is erased, it won't be restored even by some professional recovery software. Any help would be very appreciated.'įrom the user case above, we can see that selling computer wipe hard drive is essential. I want to delete everything from both. I'm a little lost on what to do and in what order. I want to make sure that nothing is traceable (password, documents, other computer files, etc). I am planning to sell my laptop soon and I want to delete everything. Should I wipe my hard drive before selling?

Computer wiping