Top 5 Tools To Securely Delete Your Data – Free Data Wipe Utilities

If you’re looking to completely erase a hard drive and start afresh, or perhaps get rid of sensitive and um, private data, formatting won’t always cut it. Some data recovery software might still be able to recover files from a formatted or simply deleted drive/disk. The best way to really get rid of the data is to use a secure deletion tool. Also known as data wipe tools, hard disk eraser tool or data sanitization tool, these utilities make sure that deleted data remains deleted. Some of them even adhere to the United States of America Department of Defence standards, so you can rest easy knowing the developers know their stuff. Here’s the 5 best tools to securely erase your data!

The 5 Best Utilities to Securely Erase Your Data

Disk Wipe

One of the best and most easy to use tools to securely erase data, Disk Wipe not only makes use of many different erasing methods, but also works on pretty much any storage media, apart from optical of course. It first quickly formats the drive then works on the method you select, so it’s pretty damn trustworthy. The best part is, no installation required, Disk Wipe is portable!

Eraser

Eraser is one of those few secure data deletion tools that has an easy to use UI as well. It’s very easy to delete specific files and folders, plus you can even delete files and folders by a schedule. Perfect for times when you need a certain area of the hard disk to be purged on a timely basis.

Secure Erase

A tool for advanced users, Secure Erase is an entirely DOS based tool that used to be supported by the NSA (yes, that NSA). It has to be run from bootable media only and will completely sanitize your hard disk, so use it with caution. Secure Erase looks plain, but boy, does it get the job done!

Freeraser

For new users, and for those who aren’t looking to completely obliterate their hard drives, Freeraser is a great choice. It’s a full program with setup and all, and places a Recycle Bin like icon on your desktop. You can simply drag and drop files/folders to it to have them securely deleted. What it lacks in advanced features, it makes up for in user friendliness and UI, so if you’re looking for a tool that doesn’t completely befuddle you, go get Freeraser.

MHDD

A full fledged storage tool, MHDD does more than just wipe hard drives. Once booted from, MHDD lets you view advanced diagnostics, lets you repair bad sectors, run tests and of course, completely erase the disk. It doesn’t have fancy DoD based methods, but gets the job done with low level formatting. Besides, there’s a lot of other features included too!

So those were our picks for the 5 best tools to securely erase your data and/or hard drives! Do let us know if you have any questions or would like to add to this list!