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I recently got to buy loads of old computer parts on the cheap, including some HDDs and an SSD with varying capacity. Since I have no idea what the former user did and what dangers there might lay in those drives I hesitate to connect them immediately to my Windows 10 Pc. Any idea how I can wipe the drives without risking getting anything funny over to my system? Also I have Windows, Linux Mint and MacOS, so I am very free on where to go from here, if there is a specific solution you'd recommend for Linux for example.

Thanks in advance and stay healthy y'all :)

Moab
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Deven
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2 Answers2

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I will recommend reformatting the drive.

However while not necessary, you can use disk wiper tools like Eraser or CCleaner. These tools will rewrite every sector of data with new data. Any virus hiding will be overwritten, but like said before reformatting should be enough.

But on the plus side, doing a full disk rewrite will make it very difficult for any one to recover any data that is on the hard drive. Even if you reformat the drive data can still be recover. And you can you encrypted backup to make you data safe.

Also don't do a full rewrite on SSD, it will not work property and you will use up more of the read/write cycles.

wasif
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Use DBAN for wiping disks. Has option for securely wiping traditional hard drives and quick zero-fill mode.

Madhubala
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