data wiping

After nearly a decade of service, Windows 10 reaches a hard end-of-support deadline on October 14, 2025 — and before you sell, donate, trade in, or recycle any device running it, you must make defending your data the first task on the checklist. Built-in tools like Windows’ “Reset this PC” make...

Anubis ransomware has emerged as a formidable threat in the cybersecurity landscape, employing a destructive wiper module that ensures victims lose their data irretrievably, even if they comply with ransom demands. This evolution in ransomware tactics underscores the increasing sophistication...

In an age where data security is paramount, ensuring that your personal information is completely and irretrievably deleted before selling, donating, or discarding a laptop is crucial. Whether you're upgrading to a new device or simply look to declutter your workspace, understanding the safest...

Hello, my goal is to replace all bytes on a disk with 0s with a single pass. I have done this many times, but yesterday, I read that I can do it faster with a larger block size 4096. My understanding is, if I use Diskpart or other terminal program to format the entire disk slowly, it will...

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I'm looking to sell a used Dell Poweredge T310 server with Server 2008 Standard SP2 and MS SQL Server 2008 R2 on it. I'd like to sell the server as-is, with the OS and installed programs. I've scrubbed many Windows XP through 10 PCs for sale but never a server. -The merits of selling this...

I bought an old HP Presario running Win 7 last year from a local used-computer shop. Now I want to either sell it or give it away on Freecycle. Naturally, I need to wipe all personal data beforehand. The laptop came with Win 7 installed but no discs or anything to use to reinstall it. How can I...

When you secure erase entire SSD; do you wipe out the whole drive (all partitions); or "System Reserved" partition is untouched?

Hello: I am trying to sell a computer to someone else, and want to more or less sanitize my personal info from the computer. I secure-deleted the files with sensitive info, uninstalled my financial software, and then ran a program like Eraser that claimed to effectively wipe all free space. I...

hi at windows 8 i deleted some files and moved to recycled bin. after that I made recycled bin empty but as I heard there still are ways to recover deleted files. which program can I use to wipe the deleted data without option to recover it? i know revo uninstaller is good for programs...

I'm building a new rig and planning to install Windows 8.1 on an SSD as the boot drive. I'd like to move over my HDD with Windows 7 boot from my old machine to the new PC to use as a storage drive. Do I have to format the HDD in my old machine first or can I just install it to my new rig as is...

So I am wiping my hard drive by booting with the Windows disk and going to command prompt. I successfully formatted drive C:, about 100 MB of system files and D:, about 500 GB or the bulk of my hard rive. These were the same hard drive, but separate partitions apparently. In Windows it just...

Ever since I recovered from the virus/trojan attack in December, my PC hasn't been the same. I keep getting a pop-up from malware-bytes and spy-bot about a smitfraud c.generic and svchost.exe problems. Needless to say, there is something happening that I can not put my finger on and realize...

Hello I have been reading about erasing my hard drive as I have to exchange my PC with a company. If it is not asking too much, could someone outline how to do this? All the tutorials seem to assume the program is ready to go. I think I am supposed to download to my desktop the particular...

Hi there, I'm currently running windows xp sp3 and I'm going to install Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit on Monday when my WD caviar black HDD arrives. Now my XP is running on a 70 gb raptor and I'd like to know what's a good way to wipe my data because I plan to replace it with the caviar black. I...

I have windows 7 installed on my PC but need to format the hard drive and re install windows 7. I have tried inserting the windows 7 cd but it seems to install the new copy and keep the old but I need to wipe everyting off so I can install some software I am having a problem with. If anyone...

I want to install windows 7 on to my windows vista laptop. I have to wipe the hard drive my backup is on the same disk in a different partition. Will the wiping of the hard disk for the installation wipe the backup partition as well? i if you know the answer post and thank you

Hello, I'm interested in switching to a RAID 0 setup from AHCI now that I have two drives, but I have a concern regarding the type of Windows7 disks I own -- namely they are the Upgrade version. I have successfully done a clean install from Vista -> RC1 -> Home Premium, but my understanding...

In the past when I've upgraded from one OS to another, I've always had issues down the road so with Windows 7, I only want to do a fresh install if necessary. I found the following info about Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade from Microsoft and I'm trying to make certain that I understand it...