How to wipe, erase and completely reset your HDD / SSD / NVME / Flash Drive back to factory settings
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- Опубліковано 5 лют 2025
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How to wipe, erase and completely reset your HDD / SSD / NVME / Flash Drive back to factory settings
Run CMD as administrator
Type DISKPART (enter)
Type LIST DISK (enter)
Carefully select the drive you want to reset by typing:
SELECT DISK 1 (1 is the number of the drive you want to reset and press enter)
type CLEAN (enter)
drive is now wiped of all partitions, formats and data.
type EXIT (enter)
and again type EXIT (enter)
All done.
Please note, this is NOT a SECURE ERASE. That takes a lot of time and puts a lot of wear and tear on the drive!!!
The SATA-to-USB adapter will not provide enough power for 3.5" desktop HDDs. For those you will need to have an external 3.5" HDD dock, or keep the drive installed in the PC.
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#wipedrive #howtowipeyourharddrive #howtoresetssd #howtoresetharddrive #howtowipeusbdrive #howtoresetssd #resetdrivetofactory #howtowipeyourpc #careyholzman
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I was hoping you would show us how to completely and physically wipe and reinitialize a drive so as to make recovery of data almost impossible. At least without special forensic data recovery tools. Can you cover this in a future video?
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Thank you. I had a 500GB 7200 RPM HDD that I had so much trouble formatting. Now it's working perfectly
You're welcome!
@@CareyHolzman It even worked on 2 USB thumbdrives.
ty Carey
Thank you Carey
thank you so much Carey!
This can also save some USB flash drives that might have been corrupted or have disk protection on them
Did the exact same thing yesterday prior to seeing this video. Command Prompt or Powershell are powerful tools. As Carey pointed out, exercise care as if you choose the wrong drive then it is goodbye to data unless you have a backup of said drive data 😪
THANK YOU!!!!
Hi ,Thanks for the tutorial, I appreciate it. I have a question ,what make and model is your keyboard and mouse on your bench. Thank You
amzn.to/40A7eiH
@@reitsound3941 thank you. That was my original question but I was reminded of another issue I wanted to bring up.
right-click Start - Disk Management
Saving this for when I get a brand new laptop one day, for nuking the bloated Windows pre-installed and reinstalling a clean, debloated copy that I tweaked myself.
this ties in to my diy post on i put up on the forums perfect timing!!
Good tutorial. After selecting the disk i want to Clean, type list disk again to verify there's a star on the disk I'm going clean. Especially if you have multiple drives in the list. Might save you from cleaning the wrong disk.
Great to see you back in my feed again. Been watching since 2006. Hope you read these because I have a simple question that does not seem to have a simple fix. Why does windows see some drives as what they are and even if I add another of the same brand all of a sudden does it decides this one is not a solid state drive, it’s a HDD? Not that it runs any different but disc cleanup doesn’t optimize it
It starts to defrag it?
I have read so many different and varying versions that it seems no one knows but they make up a script and go for thumbs.
I trust what you show simply because your track record has proven it to be no other way but correct.
If it can’t be done you explain why, or yes you can but expect it’s.
So for me and my brain once and for all, can an ssd that’s showing as an hdd in windows be corrected wether it’s an internal or external or an ssd on the sata /usb cable like you use here?
Thanks for the informative, honest and no click bait thumbs with loud lettering simply saying “NEVER DO THIS… “
(I refuse to click on anyone who can’t be bothered to tell me the subject of the video or content)
I see the title, I watch the video, if it pertains and I try it, it works. Do me and done. Thank you.
I've never heard of this problem. If it affects external drives only, its likely the USB adapter or the USB port. Otherwise, I would need to know a ton of information from you. What motherboard, what CPU, what external drive, what sata adapter, does it happen every time or some times or is this affecting internal drives and, ultimately, what difference does it make in your productivity or data integrity that you are trying to resolve?
@CareyHolzman
Let me go downstairs and I’ll go drop my specs and drives to your boards so as not to turn this into a forum.
After my searching and only the few other UA-cam creators I trust I went with it as a usb issue with the added possibility of a WD issue with certain drives. Hit both correctly and it’s the perfect storm.
Very good life lesson!!!! Thank you!
Good video. Will this work on an old c drive which windows partitioned when windows was installed? Windows creates a couple of partitions when it instals and i cant seem to remove these partitions. Thanks.
It should
The Clean command has variants that do different things. 'Clean All' will reset the drive AND zero write all data to make it non-recoverable, and should be used for sensitive data on drives.
Thanks Carey.
When I've worked with wiping or formatting drives or installing an OS on a system with multiple drives, I'll unplug everything except the drive I'm working with (and the CD or USB I'm booting from with the necessary utilities).
What about recovery of deleted partitions, or, the prevention of that? As in, if someone was to run a utility like TestDisk or PhotoRec on a drive with its partitions cleaned, does it clean them properly so they're unrecoverable? (In my limited experience when doing this with a hard drive, it has to write to the entire drive to scrub it clean, which is why I've liked DBAN, but I don't really have experience yet doing it with SSDs, and I've heard DBAN isn't the right utility for those.)
Would wiping a drive like that prevent someone with a bit of knowledge from restoring and reading my data after I sell the drive?
No absolutely not.
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Thanks! Keep up the good work.
Thank you!
The drive I want to wipe ( SATA 1Tb) doesn't show in the disk management window. Any clues would be appreciated.
Cheers Eric
Does it show in the list using DISKPART as demonstrated in this video? If not, the drive has failed, the cable is bad, the drive is not getting power or you need to try a different sata plug on your motherboard.
@@CareyHolzman It looks like the drive is a dud. I plugged a different drive into the SATA cable and it popped up in File Manager.
Thanks
Thank you for this video.
Hi Carey... do you have a solution to SECURE ERASE a drive for a sale to a stranger?
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@@CareyHolzman Thank you.
Carey, I have some Seagate, model ST373454LW, 68 pin, wide SCSI drives that I want to erase. But no one (I searched) makes a cable or adapter that will let me plug it in to a USB port.
I want to erase the drives, and either sell them (if they have any value) or toss them. Is there any solution, other than purchasing a SCSI card or an old computer with built-in support?
I have the cables to connect the drives to a SCSI controller. But I have no SCSI controller. Any suggestions?
SCSI is dead, even the SCSI controller cards are hard to find, and many will not run with a modern operating system.
@@CareyHolzman I will search for a very old computer where I can make this work. It looks like that is my only option.
Thanks for your reply. I would have wasted time and money, struggling to get a card working in a current computer.
If your PC has a PCI slot, or you have a slightly older machine with PCI you can pick up fairly popular SCSI controllers(like Adaptec units) pretty cheap from the usual places. Getting them to work with an OS even as new as Windows 10/11 is doable. Too much to explain via a comment, but if you’re fairly tech savvy and search the internet for the right information regarding connecting 68 pin SCSI drives to modern systems you will eventually find the answers you seek. I believe Adaptec also made a PCIe SCSI controller but they’re not cheap.
A big hammer springs to mind 😂
@@Moddage I found over 100 PCI-E SCSI controller cards on Ebay at about £27 ea. Branded HP
👍great video
I have successfully used disk clean command when the disk management just didn't work !
Keep it in the “ What now book ” …...
When I do anything like this, I physically disconnect the drive(s) not affected, leaving only the boot drive and the drive that I'm fiddling with.
How about a micro SD card?
Yes, this works as described regardless of the type of media.
Everything can be done in "diskpart".
nice t-shirt
Thanks!