How do I permanently delete files from my external Hard drive

Summary: This blog sheds light on the importance of permanently erasing data in your external hard drive and introduces you to Stellar File Eraser- a failsafe, permanent and secure file erasure tool, designed to destroy the contents of your external hard drive and maintain your data privacy.

An external hard drive harbors our documents, pictures, videos, music and other personal files. They are essential storage places for many of our personal, professional and sensitive information. In fact, many people use external hard drive as a backup storage device for their PC. Nevertheless, sometimes the data in the external hard drive needs to be permanently erased. Let us see why.

Key Reasons to wipe your hard drive clean

1. Data Privacy issues: When you decide to discard, sell or exchange your storage media, you need to first permanently erase its contents. This is true for both actively used hard drives and drives which have reached the end of their life terms. Erasing the contents of your user hard drive prevents its unauthorized usage.

2.Virus corruption: Sometimes, the data in your hard drive might become corrupted due to a virus or malware attack. To get rid of the virus, it is important to wipe the drive clean.

Methods to Erase files from external hard drive

In the passage below, we will discuss the different software methods to delete the files from an external hard drive

1. Delete external hard drive files using your PC settings

You can attach your external hard drive to a PC and then delete the files in your hard drives one by one. The File Explorer feature of your PC allows you to delete the files in your External hard drive. All you need to do is to right click on selected file and click delete button.  

Alternatively, you can also decide to format all the files in your external hard drive (should you choose to). All you need to do is to select the external hard drive, right click on hard drive from your PC?s interface and click on Format (see Image 2)

2. Delete external hard drive files using CMD

You can also delete your external hard drive files using your PC?s command prompt. Follow the steps below

1. Press Windows+R button to open the Run command
2. Enter CMD in the Run window and press Enter
3. In the CMD window, type diskpart and press Enter
4. Next, type list disk
5. Then select disk #(make the selection of external hard drive)
6. Type clean all to remove all files from the selected disk

3. Permanently erase external hard drive with File Erasure

Deleting using your files using your PC or Mac’s system settings doesn’t wipe the files from your computer. Any data recovery software can easily trace and recover the files.

A file erasure software is the prescribed method to permanently delete files from your hard drive. A file erasure software functions by overwriting on top of the files you wish to delete. This overwriting can be done once or multiple times. As a result of the erasure, the files become unreadable and beyond the capacity of a data recovery software.  This is known as erasure beyond recovery and only an efficient file erasure software could accomplish that.

Stellar File Eraser to permanently erase your external hard drive files

Stellar File Eraser is a recommended file erasure software that can easily and efficiently erase all contents of your external hard drive. This way, you can securely destroy your data and make it inaccessible to anyone. It is available for Mac systems as well.

Following are the key features of the Stellar File Eraser software

1) Erase all types of files and formats, including app traces, Internet histories, and deleted data.

2) Easy to use a DIY tool

3) Compliant with 3 International data erasure standards

4) Single click interface

How to use Stellar File Eraser to erase external hard drive files

1. Install Stellar File Eraser for Windows.       
2. Install and launch the software

3. Click on Erase File & Folder, the third option on the left pane.

4. Click on ?Add Items? button and a dialog box will open. Expand the selection under ?This PC? and scroll down to access the hard drives. You will also see the external hard drive in the list

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