How to Erase C Drive completely in Windows 10, 8, 7?

Scenario

“There is an old disk installed on my computer running Windows 10. I want to erase all data including operating system and other applications on C drive completely. I have planned to format C drive, but my friend told me that it is non-available to erasing C drive permanently via formatting it. So can you tell me how to erase C drive irrevocably in Windows 10? Any suggestion will be appreciated!”

You need an appropriate C drive eraser

Well, what your friend told you is right. Formatting C drive only makes the data on C drive invisible to you, but the data still exist on the drive and can be recovered by certain file recovery program. Therefore, it is beyond the ability of formatting to erase all data on C drive permanently.

In such case, what you need is to employ a great C drive eraser like AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional to achieve your goal. This reliable utility is specially designed for Windows 10/8/7, Windows XP and Vista. It is capable of completely erasing all information on C drive or the drive that Windows installed on. In fact, it is far more than a C drive Eraser. With functions such as merge partition and resize partition, It is capable of erasing all information on C drive or the drive that Windows installed on completely and effectively.

How to: erase C drive successfully and permanently

To erase C drive totally and securely, install the great C dive eraser - AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional. Since HDD and SSD differ in structure and formation, you should take different ways if you want to erase all data of C drive on HDD or SSD permanently and without hurting the disk.

✔ Wipe C Drive on HDD via disk wipe tool

As what you need to erase is C drive on HDD, the drive that contains Windows system, it is not allowed to erase it within Windows. At this point, you have to create a Windows PE bootable media to boot computer at the beginning:

1. Plug USB flash drive into your PC and run AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional.

2. Choose “Make Bootable Media” on the left panel.

3. Click USB Boot Device” to select your USB flash drive as the path to store ISO file. Then, click “Proceed”.

4. Click “Yes” and wait for the process over.

Then, you can boot your computer from the bootable USB, fire up AOMEI Partition Assistant in WinPE and take steps as follows to wipe C drive on HDD completely

Right click C drive and choose “Wipe Partition”> Choose one wiping method >Check the pending operation and click “Apply” to perform the operation.

Tips:

• When you wipe data drive on HDD, there is no necessary to create bootable device via AOMEI Partition Assistant.

• It is also available to wipe hard drive freely and securely via AOMEI Partition Assistant in Windows.

✔ Securely erase C Drive on SSD via disk erase utility

If you use SSD as your C drive, you can erase C drive via SSD Secure Erase, which is able to erase the SSD totally and make SSD restore its lost performance. But what you need to pay attention is that SSD Secure Erase has to be performed in Windows 7 and the selected SSD should not be the boot drive. Thus, you need to uninstall the SSD and connect it to a working computer running Windows 7 to securely erase the SSD. Then, you can get the detailed steps to securely erase SSD are presented in the text below:

Step 1. Run AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, right click the SSD and choose “SSD Secure Erase”.

Step 2. Choose the right SSD to erase. You can double click the selected SSD if you want to know more information about it.

Step 3. There are chances that the selected SSD is in frozen status. If it is, do a hot swap and you can release it.

Hot swap:

• Open case on desktop or rear cover or drive shell on laptop.

• Find out the position of the selected SSD

• Unplug the power cable and SATA data cable in order.

• Reconnect the SATA data cable and power cable in sequence.

Step 4. Then, the program will continue to securely erase SSD. When the operation finishes, you will receive a prompt. Then, click “Finish”.

Notice: No matter whether you wipe C drive or secure erase SSD, all the data on the C drive will be deleted irrevocably. Thus, you should back up your important data to cloud or external hard drive before erasing the C drive permanently.

From all the above, it can be concluded that you can easily reach your goal under the help of the reliable C drive Eraser – AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional even you have no idea about how to erase C drive permanently at the beginning.

Conclusion

According to all above, it can be easily concluded that even you have no about how to erase C drive permanently at the beginning, the great C drive eraser – AOMEI Partition Assistant assists you in reaching your goal effortlessly. What’s more, AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional enjoys many other functions like migrating Windows to another hard drive, copying partition and creating partition, etc.