How to Clean a Hard Drive in Windows 10? [2 Ways Included]

If you want to completely clean up a hard drive in Windows 10, 8, 7, here we round up 2 methods for your reference: clean up hard drive via CMD and a professional disk wiping tool. Keep reading and choose the proper one!

By Emily / Last Updated March 24, 2021

“How to clean my hard drive to sell it?”

“I have a Dell computer running Windows 10 Pro. The computer’s second hard drive contains sensitive material. Now I want to sell it and buy another larger one, so I need to completely and permanently erase all my files on the hard drive so that nobody can recover and see it. I have been researching different methods online but it is a minefield, can anyone help? How to clean a hard drive Windows 10?”

2 Methods to wipe clean a hard drive in Windows 10

Cleaning a hard drive is to erase all data stored on the hard drive; it is a great way to free up space on hard drive, or prevent personal data leakage after selling, donating or throwing away it. But how to wipe clean a hard drive in Windows 10/8/7? You can try the following two methods.

1. Clean a hard drive via Command Prompt

First of all, you can make use of Windows built-in Command Prompt to clean a hard drive. Open Command Prompt: press Windows+R at the same time, input “cmd” in the Run box and press Enter. In the elevated Command Prompt window, type “diskpart” to enter diskpart window. Then run the following commands:

list disk: list all disks on your computer.

select disk 1,2,3…: select the disk you want to wipe completely. Here we select disk 2.

clean all: delete all data from the selected disk.

Note: Besides running the clean command, you can also execute a special format command “format f: /fs:NTFS /p:1”. This command will format the f drive with the NTFS file system and write zeros to the drive for a single pass. It can prevent most hardware based and all software based recovery methods from lifting information from the drive.

2. Clean hard drive via a GUI professional disk wiper

Wiping hard drive clean via Diskpart seems like a great solution, but some users report this command line based utility is difficult to operate and easy to wipe the wrong disk, so most users scount for a GUI hard drive eraser tool like the below one.

“Looking for GUI software to write zero to HDD. I have a few hard drives around that I don’t use and plan to put them up on eBay for reselling. I want to make sure them sold without any data left inside.”

In this situation, I highly recommend AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional. With an intuitive interface, every user can easily choose the right disk and perform a disk wiping operation. Besides, it provides 4 different methods to clean a hard drive in Windows 10/8/7: Fill sectors with Zero, Fill sectors with random data, DoD 5220.22-M and Gutmann.

Note: The data will be removed completely via this method and it’s impossible to recover them after that. So please be careful and back up important data to cloud or external at first.

Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant Pro on your Windows 10 computer, right-click the disk you want to wipe and choose “Wipe Hard Drive”.

Step 2. In the subsequent window, you can choose a suitable wiping method from the 4 options according to your actual requirements. Then click “OK”.

Step 3. Back to the main interface, click “Apply” on the top left corner to actually starting erasing the selected hard drive.

On completion, all data have been successfully wiped out from the hard drive. If you want to erase an SSD drive without hurting it, AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional’s “SSD Secure Erase Wizard” can satisfy you best.

Final Words

This is all about how to clean a hard drive Windows 10 via Command Prompt and professional hard drive wiper software. Besides wiping a hard drive clean, AOMEI Partition Assistant Pro offers many other fantastic functions such as clone HDD to another SSD/HDD, recovering partition deleted accidentally, transfer OS from HDD to SSD, and more. If you are running Windows Server, you can try AOMEI Partition Assistant Server.

5 best deep clean hard drive software

• Deep clean hard drive software securely shreds data so that other people won’t get hold of your secret files using recovery software. It’s an excellent way to improve your security and privacy.
• You can use the software tools on this list to sanitize your hard drive if you share your PC with others or if you plan to recycle your old HDD. It’s certainly easier than destroying your hard drive.
• If your HDD is too slow no matter what you try, switch to SSD. Here are the largest SSDs to buy.
• Visit our Optimization and Cleaning hub for more fresh guides!

1. Download Restoro PC Repair Tool that comes with Patented Technologies (patent available here).
2. Click Start Scan to find Windows issues that could be causing PC problems.
3. Click Repair All to fix issues affecting your computer’s security and performance

• Restoro has been downloaded by 0 readers this month.

Deep clean hard drive software restores your PC security and privacy by securely wiping data to ensure that others can’t retrieve your confidential files.

As technology progresses, a lot of things changes about computers from one generation to the next. Their power, their accessibility and price, and even their size, all change in a relatively small period of time. However, one thing that never changes about computers is the fact that they eventually get really messy.

By that, we don’t mean users spilling their soda over the keyboard or there being a large amount of dust on the monitor. What we are referring to is the fact that computers and more specifically their hard drives always get clustered and obstruct the well functioning of the entire system.

Cluttered hard drives

No matter how big a hard drive is in size, it will eventually run out of free space due to the fact that there is way more stuff on the Internet for users to download than hard drive manufacturers are able to fit in their products. Even if you have 2 TB of free space, it’s still just a matter of time before that runs out too. And when it does, sorting out all the files and information and finding the junk you need to throw away amidst important documents and data won’t be so easy without help.

Hard drive cleaners

That brings us to the main subject of this article, which is the importance of having a hard drive cleaning service available on your PC. Inevitably a time will come when you are going to need it and it’s great to have it prepared. Maybe you need it right now, and don’t know what kind of software you should be looking for. Fear not, as we are here to provide you with the top picks for the role of hard drive cleaner.

There are many good picks out there but there are also ones that don’t do so great and it’s good to be able to differentiate them. That being said, let’s see what the top picks are for when you are in dire need of software to help you clean your hard drive completely and sort junk from important data.

1. CCleaner (recommended)

In many areas, CCleaner is pretty much the only popular solution for cleaning out your computer’s hard drive. There’s a good reason for that, as CCleaner provides great options for doing that and the task can be easily completed with a nice array of extra features on top.

CCleaner offers multiple options for when it comes to cleaning your hard drive and one of them is called Drive Wipe. In case you haven’t figured it out by now, Drive Wipe will completely erase data from your hard drive and you won’t have to worry about traces being left that could be accessed by skilled individuals that know their way around the computer more than the average Joe. You can use this software to only erase the empty part of your partitions. This is done for the aforementioned reason of making sure that there’s nothing left there.

When deleting stuff, CCleaner offers users a wide range of options that come with different numbers of passes. The more passes it has, the more effective an option is but also the more time it will take it to get the job done. This is pretty much giving users the option to choose depending on how much time they have on their hands.

Of course, there’s a certain threshold that dictates how effective a number of extra passes would be in comparison to the previous tier. The higher you go, the more the whole thing loses its efficiency and worth. That being said, those that want to be as sure as possible that information has been completely wiped from the disk can use a wiping process with a higher number of passes, even if it won’t do a lot more after a while.

CCleaner also offers some other nice features that allow users to completely refresh their systems such as the ability to repair registries. The main focus of users that download this software, however, remains to clear out partitions and making sure that what is deleted stays deleted. When you find your computer running sluggish, this is definitely good software to keep in mind.

2. Shredit

Run a System Scan to discover potential errors

Although Shredit sounds like an appropriate name for a program that aims to do the complete opposite of what Reddit does (shredding stuff vs. writing stuff) it’s quite a long shot to think that this was the actual inspiration for the software name.

Regardless of where its name comes from, one thing is for sure: Shredit is a meticulous application that allows users to safely delete files which are never to be seen or read again. Just as the name implies, information is shredded and is rendered absolute in a manner of moments.

One of the things that Shredit excels at is the fact that it can prioritize large numbers of files or individual files all the same. Users that are looking to delete specific files can thus have Shredit only focus on one item at a time, or have it shred things in bulk.

It can do even more than that however, as there doesn’t have to be any information visible on a partition for Shredit to be able to clean it up. Yes, Shredit can also be used to clean up free space, which will help make sure that whatever was there isn’t coming back. When it comes to how intense the process is, the software lets users choose for themselves just how thorough the want it to be.

The software comes with multiple governmental standards which can somewhat attest for its capabilities to completely remove information from a hard drive. Additionally, those that want a copy can either go for the digital version or the CD version. The former

The former is, of course, cheaper and you will also get it instantly which makes it a lot more convenient than having to wait for the physical one, not to mention that today not all machines even have CD-ROMs. For instance, a lot of laptops today completely ditch the CD-ROM in favor of other attributes.

3. BleachBit

From a paid program we bounce back to the free software space. Our host for returning to this category is BleachBit, a service that is quite popular and for good reason: It provides excellent data wiping and security protection features that make users love it.

There are multiple reasons for which a person might be in need of using BleachBit. To start off, it’s what you would need when you don’t have any more room available on your computer’s hard drive. As mentioned slightly previously, BleachBit also does a fine job in making sure that the user’s privacy is respected and protected. To do this, BleachBit makes sure that what a user deletes won’t see the light of day again, making it thus very efficient for removing sensitive information.

BleachBit is good for things other than removing junk files as well. For instance, it’s great for completely wiping free space clean. In fact, the software provides two distinct methods through which someone could wipe the disk clean, even the free space portion.

The easiest way in which you can achieve this is by navigating to the actual option that reads “Wipe Free Space”. It can be found in the File tab once you open the app and it’s quick and effective. The other method is not as straight forward but depending on each individual’s style of navigating around a computer, it might be the easier or preferred solution for some.

The second way in which you can wipe a drive’s free space is by navigating to the Free Disk Space section of the app and using the Clean icon to launch the process.

The intriguing part about this whole deal is that there is no actual Cancel button so one might be tricked into believing that once the process is started, there’s no going back. In a theoretical sense, yes, that’s the way things are. However, in a practical sense, you can completely cancel the process, just not with a Cancel button. Simply close the program and the wiping process will cease immediately.

Editor’s Note: This article continues on the next page. If you’re interested in other PC optimization and cleaning tools, check out our wide collection of guides.