Articles tagged: secure wipe

A surreal scene showing a standing maintenance person using a floor polisher on a giant hard disk platter. The maintenance worker, dressed in a standard blue jumpsuit and safety shoes, is actively operating the large, mechanical floor polisher.

How Often Should I Wipe Hard Drive Free Space?

Free-space wiping prevents the recovery of deleted files. Whether you need to do it, or how often, depends on how interesting your data is.

Wiping Data

How to Securely Wipe the Windows System Drive

Reformatting the system drive takes a little more effort than other drives. Here are three ways to get it done.

A concerned young man with large glasses holding a pink eraser beside a laptop. The laptop screen displays the Windows logo and icons of a folder, a document, and a trash can. The background is warm-toned, and there's a cup of pencils on the desk.

How Can I Securely Delete Everything Except the Operating System?

Before giving away a machine or returning a loaner, it’s important to remove your personal information from it. That may be both harder and easier than you think.

How To Keep an External Hard Drive Useful and Healthy Longer

How To Keep an External Hard Drive Useful and Healthy Longer

My best practices for external hard drives concern software, hardware, and — you guessed it — backing up.

Explosion

How Do I Remove Only My Personal Information from a Computer?

Unfortunately, there is no practical way to determine what is and what isn’t personal information. Securing a computer to give away is an all-or-nothing proposition.

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