3 Steps to Wipe Files from PC Hard Drive

Are you one of those who wants to donate or recycle your old computer? Then read this blog as I am going to tell you something very important which you need to know before sending away your computer system or a hard drive. The first thing you have to do is wipe your hard drive. That means wiping out all your personal files which holds information that can be misused.

You might think that there is no such essential stuff available which needs to be wiped but your old devices perhaps holds a lot of information. Stuff which you think is not that important to wipe can bother you in future like your medical records, bank login information, email id password saved on browsers, etc. can be accessed by hackers who can misuse it.

Is it fine enough to simply delete old files? No, the deleted files even by using shift + delete button is not enough to actually wipe them off.

How to Completely Wipe Files from the Computer’s Hard Drive

Follow these 3 steps to make sure that you’re truly wiping files from your computer’s hard disk drives. These steps will help you to wipe your browsers history, account login details, photos, videos, and other important documents when you send-off your old device.

Step 1: First take back-up of your Important Files

Taking backup of your data on regular basis is a tidy way to keep your data safe. As we all know that hard drives are prone to get crashed, dead, or attacked by viruses or ransomware kind of software. So the best practice to keep yourself away from such kind of trouble is backing up your data frequently.

So before erasing files from your computer’s hard disk drives, make sure that you have taken a backup of your data to the new storage device or cloud base services. Also after taking backup of your data check your files by opening them to make sure that there is no accessibility issue.

Step 2: Deleting files from your computer is not enough

If you think that deleting files from recycle bin or trash cannot be recovered then this is a misconception, since there are many data recovery tools available which can recover permanently deleted files from hard drives. Even these data recovery companies provide free data recovery software to recover data from formatted or corrupted hard drives.

The risks of only deleting and not erasing files from hard drive are identify theft, data breach due to the easy availability of data recovery tools which can effortlessly access your deleted files.

Step 3: Use a Best File Wipe tool to Erase Entire Hard drive

There are many File Eraser programs which can erase files from any type of storage devices. By using these file eraser software there is very less chances that you the owner or any unauthorized person can get any file back.

I have tried many File Eraser tools and the one which I would like to recommend is Bitraser File Eraser software. This program uses 17 different algorithms which ensure that data is gone forever and now no data recovery tool can recover it. It’s a complete free file eraser software for 30 Days, you can avail each and every feature of this software without spending a single penny. Bitraser File Eraser software available for both Mac and Windows systems.

Conclusion: Not wiping your storage devices can put your data at risk, so if you are thinking of recycling your hard drives or computer then it is recommended to first backup your data and then wipe your storage devices completely. Believe me erasing your hard drive is not that herculean task and keep your data safe.