Low-Level Format from Windows?

CCleaner & Easus Partition master are free.

Diskpart is built in windows, use the clean all command and it will wipe them.

1. Open the Start Menu, type diskpart, press Enter
2. Type list disk, press Enter
3. Type select disk X (where X is the number your drive shows up as), press Enter
4. Type clean all, press Enter (this will take a long time, about 2-3hrs for a 500GB-1TB drive)
5. Type create partition primary, press Enter
6. Type format quick fs=ntfs, press Enter
7. Type assign, press Enter
8. Type exit, press Enter

Also, CCleaner has a drive wiper tool as well if you want to use that instead.

Are these utilities as good as a low level format? Will there still be any recoverable data left if i do a clean all or use ccleaner/easus?

Since I'm on a haste cause i need to deliver these drives tomorrow morning, i just started with diskpart since it does not require any software installation. Bad thing is that it doesnt give you any completion percentage and i wont know how long it will take.

But I'm still worried, Is clean all as good as a secure wipe, and is the wipe as good a low-level format? I need to be certain that the guy i sell to wont recover any of my data in case i may have anything sensitive there.

I personally use dban

Killdisk will do a 0 wipe in the free version.
Paid version will do a DOD level wipe.

DOS and Windows versions are available.

I just tried rstudio to see if i can recover anything and after a while i got a messgae that there is not enough space. Before i run R-studio i got 60GB free, and when i got the message i got like 24KB on my drive! I panicked and i restarted my computer now it seems i got 4GB free, but i cant locate where the rest of the files went.

*** happened? Why did my main drive fill up and i cant find any new files?

Quote:

Originally Posted by therock003

Are these utilities as good as a low level format?

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Define low level format. Window's full format does a check disk and a partition table rewrite. That will not make data unrecoverable.
Quote:

Will there still be any recoverable data left if i do a clean all or use ccleaner/easus?

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Nope
Quote:

Originally Posted by therock003

Since I'm on a haste cause i need to deliver these drives tomorrow morning, i just started with diskpart since it does not require any software installation. Bad thing is that it doesnt give you any completion percentage and i wont know how long it will take.
Quote:

But I'm still worried, Is clean all as good as a secure wipe,

Click to expand...

The clean all is a secure erase. It writes 0's to all the secotros of the drive. Thus all data gone.
Quote:

and is the wipe as good a low-level format? I need to be certain that the guy i sell to wont recover any of my data in case i may have anything sensitive there.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

He won't be able to.

Doesn't really feel like he took our advice...

Recuva is okay......but something more robust like getdataback might be able to find stuff.
I still recommend a DOD or higher level wipe.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cancer

Doesn't really feel like he took our advice...

Recuva is okay......but something more robust like getdataback might be able to find stuff.
I still recommend a DOD or higher level wipe.

Click to expand...

Why do you say that? Obviously I couldn't try all the methods and software so i had to choose. I chose ccleaner and diskpart since they seemed to be the most accessible options for wiping. as for recovery, besides you naming "getdataback" right now, noone else recommended any alternative by name, just generally pointing me to trying to see if i can restore anything. Recuva is said to be a very good choice, so i tried that. And it found no traces so i guess i was safe.