You can completely erase a drive. This erases both visible and invisible, previously-deleted files. After erasing a drive, the drive will be totally blank, ready to be used again.
This feature is commonly used for removable drives: USB thumb drives, memory cards, external drives, etc. It's an easy way to remove all sensitive information from these devices after each use.
Most of the time, your computer only has one drive inside: the primary drive or main drive. This is the drive that holds your operating system and all of your programs. In Windows, it's your "C:\" drive. In OSX and Linux, it's your root "/" drive. To erase this drive, see Erase Computers.
If, however, your computer has other internal drives, you can erase them here.
When you erase an entire drive, EraseData refers to it as a Wipe. There's a limit to how many full-drive wipes you can perform. EraseData displays your available drive wipes as Drive Wipes Left.
To add more wipes, click Add Wipes on the right. After adding wipes, you may need to click the Refresh button.
To erase a drive, follow these steps:
IMPORTANT: Erasing a drive is permanent. As soon as you start erasing a drive, files will be destroyed! Even if you cancel the operation, some files will be permanently gone.
If your computer has a solid state drive (SSD), we strongly recommend that you use one of these two erasers:
This will minimize the wear on your drive and help prolong its lifespan.
Note that most newer computers use solid state drives.