How to Empty a Hard Drive

Use the "Format" system utility to empty all data off a hard drive.

A computer user may wish to empty the entire contents of her hard drive for many reasons. These reasons vary from recovering from a virus infection to installing a hard drive into a new computer from a previous system or when disposing of a hard drive. Emptying a hard drive of all its data is a straightforward, streamlined process and requires virtually no technical knowledge.

Instructions

1. Navigate to the hard drive using Windows Explorer.

2. Right-click the hard drive's icon and select the "Format..." heading. This opens a disk format dialog box.

3. Leave all settings at their default values. These settings should only be changed by advanced computer users and are optimized for the system where the hard drive is currently installed.

4. Click the "Start" button to begin the format procedure. A dialog box appears asking if you are sure you wish to format the drive. Click the "OK" button to proceed. The operating system removes move all data from the hard drive, placing it in a completely empty state.

Tips & Warnings

• Create a back-up copy of all important data before using the format process to empty the hard drive.

References

• Microsoft: Create and Format a Hard Disk Partition