Diskpart

[Margo1]

Hi. I've been doing more research and I've found that using a Windows installation media or recovery environment to perform the Diskpart operation and using the clean all command could wipe the C: hard drive that my operating system is on. This is what I want because I want to give my computer away and my files and other data are on this drive.

Does anyone know how well this Diskpart works to erase all data?

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

If you are concerned about data recovery, remove the drive and destroy it.

That would be the only way to be 100% sure the data on the drive can never be recovered.

Diskpart will erase Windows, and all the partitions on the drive but the data will always be there and someone can use sophisticated software to access the data.

It's usually good enough for most folks because the average person just wants to use the PC for personal use, not see what info they can steal from it.

Let whoever you are giving the PC to, buy a new drive for it and reinstall Windows.

[Margo1]

Hi. I will be taking your advice and destroying the hard drive. I would like to use the Diskpart first, but I have a problem.

I used a Recovery Drive to get to the command prompt because I want to clean Disk 0, which is where my operating system is. I was able to get to the part after entering the 0 disk as the drive I want to clean. I then typed clean all, but nothing is happening.

Why is this? I started from a Recovery drive. Besides, when I used the option to Reset Everything and clean data the other day, a message "User Profile failed and cannot be loaded" came up, but I didn't do anything about this. The Reset option did not work at all because my name still came up.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Here's how I clean disks using Diskpart:

I make a bootable W10 or W11 installation flash drive with the Microsoft media creation tool:

Download Windows 10

Boot from the installation media and when you get to the part of the script that asks, 'Where do you want to install Windows, do this:

1. Press Shift+F10 from inside Windows Setup screen to open a command prompt window.
2. Type diskpart and press the Enter key.
3. Type list disk to find your disk number.
4. Type select disk (e.g., select disk0) to choose the disk you want to format.
5. Finally, type clean to wipe the disk completely.
6. Exit diskpart 

Remove the USB flash drive, push and hold the power button to shut down the PC, unplug it and remove the drive.

[Margo1]

But isn't my Disk 0 being cleaned now even though it appears nothing is happening? There is no error message and I had no problem getting to the command prompt and typing the commands.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

It takes less than a few seconds for Diskpart to run and clean the disk, and it will report that the operation was successful.

If you don't see what appears in the link I posted, then the disk was not cleaned.

OIP.Lu-4sXKGR38_oZfFIwVDOwHaEA (474×256)

[Margo1]

I've had the computer for 8 years and the disk is over 900 GB. I think it will take longer. Plus, I used the clean all command, not the clean command.

I will leave it on for a couple of hours and see what happens. 

[Margo1]

Hi, again. A message came up "Diskpart succeeded in cleaning the disk." This was the large sized hard disk, Disk0, with over 900 GB. 

Should I also clean the 14GB disk, which is Disk1? These are the only ones showing in Diskpart, besides the optical drive E.

Thanks.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Yes, clean disk1 which is the recovery partition on the hard drive. 

It's of no value without the HP recovery manager software which was removed by cleaning drive 0.

[Margo1]

OK. Thanks!