You may need to completely wipe an external hard disk for data erasure or drive reuse. Here this MiniTool post shows you how to wipe an external hard drive with the help of the diskpart command line tool and partition management software, MiniTool Partition Wizard.

Why You Need to Securely Wipe an External Hard Drive

Wiping a disk is a process that completely removes all data on a disk, rendering it unrecoverable through traditional or professional data recovery techniques, usually for data security and privacy reasons. For example, when you plan to throw away or sell a used external hard drive, erasing the disk can ensure that the files on it are permanently deleted to prevent personal files or work information from being leaked. In addition, wiping the disk may be to free up disk space. Although most users generally choose to delete files or format partitions to clear disk space, some users prefer to wipe the disk directly.

In conclusion, wiping your hard drive is an important security measure to ensure that your data is not at risk of being compromised. In the next part, we will describe how to wipe a hard drive Windows 11/10/8/7.

Note:
There is almost no possibility of data recovery after a disk has been wiped. Therefore, it is advised to back up your files before proceeding with the following approaches.
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How to Wipe an External Hard Drive for Reuse

Method 1. Clean an External Hard Drive Using CMD

The easiest way to clean an external disk is to use the Windows built-in diskpart tool. The steps are as follows.

Before you do, connect your external hard drive to your PC with a USB cable.

Step 1. Type cmd in the Windows search box and select the Run as administrator option from the right panel.

Step 2. Type the following command lines, and press Enter after each command.

  • diskpart
  • list disk
  • select disk # (# represents the external hard drive number)
  • clean all
command lines to clean the disk

Method 2. Wipe an External Hard Drive With MiniTool Partition Wizard

If the diskpart “clean all” command line is not working or you receive an error message saying “DiskPart has encountered an error”, you can choose to wipe the external hard disk with the help of MiniTool Partition Wizard. It is a powerful partition management software that can help erase disks and perform other disk management operations such as disk formatting, disk cloning, disk conversion, disk error checking, etc.

Tips:
The Wipe Disk feature is free to use.

Now, connect the external hard drive to your computer and start disk erasure.

Step 1. Download, install, and launch MiniTool Partition Wizard Free.

MiniTool Partition Wizard FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

Step 2. Select the external hard drive and then click the Wipe Disk option from the left menu bar.

Step 3. In the new window, select a wiping method and click OK.

choose a wiping method

Step 4. Click the Apply button located in the lower left corner to start wiping the disk.

Method 3. Erase an External Disk via MiniTool System Booster

Alternatively, you can opt to wipe an external hard drive with MiniTool System Booster. It is the best PC tune-up software to help you wipe hard drives, speed up the CPU/RAM, repair system issues, clean junk files, and so on.

MiniTool System Booster provides you with a trial edition that allows you to enjoy its features within 15 days for free.

MiniTool System Booster TrialClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

How to wipe an external hard drive with this software? Keep reading.

Step 1. Make sure the external hard drive is connected to your computer.

Step 2. Launch MiniTool System Booster to enter its main interface. In the Performance section, select the Toolbox option from the drop-down menu. After that, click the Drive Scrubber option to continue.

select Drive Scrubber

Step 3. Select the drive you’d like to wipe and select a wiping method. After that, click the WIPE SELECTED DRIVE button.

wipe the selected drive
Tips:
As mentioned before, it is almost impossible to recover data from a wiped drive. However, if the data erasure is not completed, you can try to use MiniTool Power Data Recovery to recover files. Its free edition supports free data scanning, preview, and 1 GB free data recovery.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

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Wrapping Things Up

All in all, this article introduces multiple approaches to assist you in wiping an external hard disk.

Please feel free to contact [email protected] if you encounter any issues while using MiniTool software.

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