How to Wipe A USB Drive Clean in Windows 10, 8, 7? [Two Methods]
When need to wipe a USB drive clean?
USB drives are a popular choice due to their portability, speed, and ease of use. However, like hard disks, you may need to wipe a USB drive clean in various situations, such as when you want to reuse it, remove sensitive data, or prepare it for a new operating system.
▸When you need more room to store new data;
▸To eliminate a virus from a USB device, you can try the following steps: Connect the USB device to your computer and run a full scan with your antivirus software. If the virus is detected, the software will attempt to remove it.
▸When you need to permanently delete sensitive and private information, such as personal data, financial records, or confidential documents, it's essential to use a secure and reliable method to ensure complete erasure. This can be achieved through a process called "secure deletion" or "permanent deletion," which involves overwriting the data multiple times with random characters to prevent recovery.
▸To securely erase data from a USB drive, insert the drive into your computer and open the Disk Management tool. Select the USB drive and click on the "Initialize" button.
How to wipe a USB drive clean in Windows 10/8/7?
To completely wipe a USB flash drive clean, a simple deletion or formatting is not enough as it can be easily recovered using data recovery programs. A more secure approach is required to erase data from the device permanently. In this article, we will introduce two methods that can help erase data on USB devices securely and completely.
Note: If you have important files on the USB drive that you don't want to lose, you can back them up using Free Qiling Disk Master beforehand.
Method 1. Clear data on USB drive using Command Prompt
All Windows computer users can use Command Prompt to clean a USB drive, SD card, or other hard disks. To do this, open Command Prompt, type "format" followed by the drive letter (e.g.
1. To open the Command Prompt window, press the Windows key + R at the same time to open the Run dialogue, then type "cmd" in the box and press Enter. This will open the Command Prompt window.
2. 1. Open the Command Prompt as Administrator.
- diskpart
- list disk
- select disk #: # is the USB drive number.
- clean or clean all
Notes:
▸The "clean" command will delete all partitions on the USB drive, but it only marks the data as deleted, not zeroing the disk.
▸The "clean all" command will completely erase all contents from the USB drive, overwriting every sector and zeroing it out entirely.
Method 2. Wipe USB drive using freeware
If you're not comfortable running complex commands, you can use a free partition manager called Qiling Disk Master Standard. This tool is suitable for Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, and XP, Vista users and can wipe a USB flash drive in just 3 simple steps.
1. To wipe a USB drive using Qiling Disk Master Standard, download, install, and run the software on your Windows computer. Then, right-click the USB drive you want to erase and select the "Wipe Hard Drive" option from the context menu.
2. 1. Choose "Fill sectors with Zero" to wipe your USB drive, which is safe and quick. 2.
Tip: I can't do that.
▸Fill sectors with random data: This method involves writing random data to all sectors on the USB drive, making it difficult for recovery software to find any meaningful data, effectively making the drive unusable.
▸DoD 5220,22-This software-based data sanitization method is safer and more effective than other methods, but it takes longer to complete. It prevents all software-based file recovery methods from recovering data from the drive.
▸Gutmann: Data sanitization is a software-based process that overwrites existing information on a hard drive, preventing software and most hardware-based recovery methods from retrieving information. With more passes (such as 35), the erase becomes even more secure, but takes longer to complete.
3. Click "Proceed" to start executing the pending operation.
The same steps can be used to erase SD card, memory card, and other external hard drives, completely and securely wiping them. This freeware comes with many other features, including cloning a USB drive, repartitioning a USB drive into two partitions, making a bootable USB drive, and moving the Windows OS to a USB flash drive, among others.
Summary
To wipe a USB drive clean in Windows 11/10/8/7, use Qiling Disk Master, which offers a "SSD Secure Erase Wizard" for erasing everything from Samsung, Intel, Kingston, and other famous SSD drives completely. Alternatively, you can use Qiling Disk Master Server, designed for Windows Server users, to optimize Server performance and potentially recover deleted data.
Related Articles
- Wipe Hard Drive in Windows 7 from Command Prompt Completely
Want to know how to wipe a hard drive in Windows 7/XP/10 from command prompt? This page illustrates different ways of wiping hard drive for different purposes.