Need help wiping out HDDs

PortaXerouli55 · Dec 13, 2016

Hello,

I have a laptop and an external hard drive and I wish to wipe them out both. There are just some minor issues I am having, so it would be great if someone could help me.

1. (There are software that can fill drives with 0s or 1s and) I already had installed MiniTool Partition Wizard, which gives you the option of filling a hard disk with 0s, 1s, 0s + 1s, DoD 5220.22-m and DoD 5220.28-STD. Which one should I choose? I read a bit about the last two, but unless you have some really questionable things on your HDD there's no point in using those methods, right?
2. It doesn't matter if that program which i am using is used to wipe a usb flash drive or a HDD, does it?
3. I know that you can use diskpart to wipe a disk, but can you use it on the HDD that is currently on use?
4. Is it any helpful to fill your HDD with 0s more than once?

If anyone can give me some help, I would really appreciate it.

(Out of topic) Bonus question:
5. As I said, I want to wipe out the HDD of my laptop which currently has Windows 10 Home pre-installed. After I wipe out my HDD I am going to reinstall Windows 10 Home edition with the method that was introduced with the Media Creation Tool. I just need to know, there won't be a problem with the activation of Windows 10 because I wiped out my HDD, right?

USAFRet · Dec 13, 2016

diskpart, DBAN, any of the current partition tools...all can wipe the drive.
Be absolutely sure you are manipulating the correct drive. Far too often, we see an "Oops" in here.

4. The Windows activation does not care about reinstall on the same drive or a different drive. As long as it is in the same system.

PortaXerouli55 · Dec 13, 2016

First off, thank you.

Secondly, does that mean that if I were to purchase the same exact laptop and install Windows 10 on it, Windows would then be activated?

Is it possible to tell me if there is any point in zero-ing out a drive more than once?

Thanks again.

hang-the-9 · Dec 13, 2016

You seem to be trying to do a bunch of fairly useless work, a bit like painting the house a day before it's demolished.

Why are you doing a wipe like this when you are just going to be re-using the drive? Are you selling the system? Why are you not just using the recovery partition to re-install Windows? A lot simpler to do.

USAFRet · Dec 13, 2016

PortaXerouli55 :

1. No, because it is a different 'system'. That new install of Windows and the activation servers knows nothing about this new PC.
You might be able to get away with it by linking your OS license to a Microsoft account.
Read and do this: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-3164428/windows-build-1607-activation.html

Of course, there is only one license, unless you buy a whole new one.
1 license, 1 PC. You can't use it on the new laptop AND the old one.

2. No point it wiping it more than once.

PortaXerouli55 · Dec 13, 2016

Thanks for informing me of this.

Well, I am not going to sell my laptop or my external hard drive, but because of some some changes and a minor paranoia, I have the need to clean some things up. I just don't feel comfortable using an OS that has been in use for more than a year + some suspicions that I currently have and (hopefully) might be wrong.

PortaXerouli55 · Dec 13, 2016

I could try what you said about linking my Microsoft account on my other, somewhat useless, pc.

Thanks for the help.

USAFRet · Dec 13, 2016

PortaXerouli55 :

My main PC just had its first 'clean OS install' in 4.5 years. Summer 2012 to last weekend.
Started with Win 7, and then...Win 7->8->8.1->10
Along with 4 different C drives.
Sandisk 120GB->Kingston120GB->Samsung 250GB->Samsung 500GB (All SSD's)

Changing the OS's was Upgrade/Keep Everything each time, and changing the drives was a clone each time.
New hardware (motherboard/CPU/RAM) dictated a fresh install.

PortaXerouli55 · Dec 13, 2016

USAFRet :

I guess it depends on ones thoughts, actions and feelings. For me, doing what you did, would be a bit brave/scary(?) and I am certain that it would be like having an itch in my brain. Unless, whenever you changed your SSD, you would use a system image that was "clean". I don't know.. I just hope i am not seen too much of a wacko.

USAFRet · Dec 13, 2016

PortaXerouli55 :

Each OS or drive change, I had a full disk image of the previous, just in case I needed to fall back.
System image is exactly as the system was at that moment. Warts and all.

For instance, with the recent hardware change and clean install...a full image of the C drive was the very last thing I did before power down and taking it apart to replace the hardware.
Upgrading to Win 10, same thing. etc, etc...

We have some people here who do a full reinstall every month, just because. Seemingly, they install more often than I reboot...lol

hang-the-9 · Dec 13, 2016

PortaXerouli55 :

You don't need to wipe the drive first the way you are looking to do, just re-install Windows on the system after deleting the existing partition, it will wipe whatever is on the drive beforehand. Maybe not as well as a secure disk wipe, but that is only needed if you really wanted to be sure that no-one can get to old data that was on the drive. For just re-installing Windows for yourself, there is no need to go this far. Same thing for your external drive, go to disk manager, delete the partition on it, create new partition, format it, old files are effectively gone.

PortaXerouli55 · Dec 13, 2016

hang-the-9 :

PortaXerouli55 :

You don't need to wipe the drive first the way you are looking to do, just re-install Windows on the system after deleting the existing partition, it will wipe whatever is on the drive beforehand. Maybe not as well as a secure disk wipe, but that is only needed if you really wanted to be sure that no-one can get to old data that was on the drive. For just re-installing Windows for yourself, there is no need to go this far. Same thing for your external drive, go to disk manager, delete the partition on it, create new partition, format it, old files are effectively gone.

What if I was not the only one that had access to my laptop? Generally, I do what you just said, but I think I will stick with my plan now. Thanks for your help

PortaXerouli55 · Dec 13, 2016

USAFRet :

PortaXerouli55 :

Each OS or drive change, I had a full disk image of the previous, just in case I needed to fall back.
System image is exactly as the system was at that moment. Warts and all.

For instance, with the recent hardware change and clean install...a full image of the C drive was the very last thing I did before power down and taking it apart to replace the hardware.
Upgrading to Win 10, same thing. etc, etc...

We have some people here who do a full reinstall every month, just because. Seemingly, they install more often than I reboot...lol

I'm assuming that by saying "We have some people here" you are referring to employees of some sort of company and by doing a clean install they keep their systems somewhat "clean", which is just a tiny bit helpful for security or might just be extremely useless (unless you are referring to a specific "type" of people, in that case that's the pefect example of a wacko).

USAFRet · Dec 13, 2016

PortaXerouli55 :

No, I'm talking about members here at Tom's...:lol:
Just 'regular' people.

At least I think they're regular.

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