You cannot wipe data from the USB flash drive completely with a simple deletion or formatting, because any one can easily recover them with using any data recovery software. USB drive recovery programs can be easily downloaded from the Internet and it is quite easy to retrieve deleted or formatted data from USB drives. Insert your drive into a USB port. Wait for the computer to read the drive and load the content.
CAUTION: The steps below will completely wipe the data from the USB drive you select. Make sure you choose the correct drive and backup any files on the drive you may need to keep. For example, this USB drive is F:
METHOD 1: Using the cipher command line tool
cipher is a built-in command line tool in the Windows operating system that can be used to encrypt or decrypt data on drives.
It can be used to securely erase the FREE SPACE on a USB drive. Note – this is FREE SPACE only – if you want to erase the entire drive you must first format the drive so that it ALL free space.
The free space is overwritten three times:
- with a series of 0's
- with a series of 255's
- with a series of random numbers
- Click on the Windows button at the bottom left of the screen, type 'cmd' and when it appears in the list click on 'Command Prompt'
- Enter the following command making sure to replace X with the drive letter you want to erase
METHOD 2: Using the diskpart command line tool
diskpart is a built-in command line tool in the Windows operating system that is normally used to manage drives, partitions and mappings (partitions to letters) .
It can also be used to erase a USB drive by removing all existing partitions and writing a series of o's.
- Click on the Windows button at the bottom left of the screen, type 'cmd' and when it appears in the list click on 'Command Prompt'
- Enter the following command to start diskpart
- The diskpart program will load, once it's ready you will see 'DISKPART>' at the command prompt.
- Now enter
- This will list all drives connected to the computer, each represented by a number (1, 2, 3 etc) – determine which is the USB drive by the amount of space. In this case it is Disk 3 but it may be different for your computer.
- Enter in the following command, making sure to replace # with the number of your drive from above
- The screen will display 'Disk # is now the selected disk'. Now enter
- The wiping process will now start and may take several minutes to complete – depending on the size of the drive. When finished you will have an empty USB drive ready to reformat.
OPTIONAL STEPS: Format drive using diskpart
If you want to reformat the drive (assign a partition type and drive letter) you can do this using diskpart by entering the following commands. How to design a website in gimp.
NOTE: replace FAT32 with NTFS if you would prefer to use the NTFS. See
If you're not sure which is right for you – check out FAT32 vs NTFS – how to pick the right format for your USB drive.
METHOD 3: Using Eraser (third-party software)
Eraser is a free program that is recommended by the creators of DBAN (a bootable hard drive erasing tool).
- Install and run
- Right-click in the middle area and choose ‘New Task'
- Under ‘Task Type' choose ‘Run Immediately'
- Click on the ‘Add Data' button
- Under ‘Target Type' choose ‘Drive/Partition'
- Then from the list choose the drive you want to erase completely
- Optional: you can also choose the erase algorithm using ‘Erasure method' – but I would only do this if I knew 100% what and why.
- Click ‘OK' to save the changes
- The task should now look something like this
- Click ‘OK' to save the changes
- Eraser will now start wiping the drive – it may take awhile depending on the size of the drive.
Summary
You want abandon your old USB thumb drive but worry about the data leakage? Don't worry, you can permanently wipe USB drive. This article will tell you how to safely and permanently wipe USB flash drive for free.
Table of Contents
- How to Permanently Wipe USB Drive
Is It Possible to Permanently Wipe USB Thumb Drive?
When you about to abandon your old USB pen drive, you maybe worry about data leakage on the USB, if you know about some IT knowledge, you will not feel strange that data can be recovered easily no matter you deleted it, or formatted it. So, is it possible to remove data on USB flash drive permanently and make the data no longer be recovered?
The answer is yes, you can permanently wipe USB pen drive and make it impossible to recover the data back.
How to Permanently Wipe USB Drive
Completely Wipe Usb Stick
To permanently wipe an USB drive, you need a erase tool to help you, some USB flash drive manufacturers have their own erase tool, like Samsung, Kingston, etc. And you can also choose a professional disk erase tool to make it.
Permanently Wipe USB/UFD Drive/Memory Card with Manufacturer Brand Wipe Tool
For some flash drive brands, they have their own tool to erase data or manage the device, you can use it to manege your USB/UFD/memory card, these are some download websites of them.
Samsung USB/UFD Drive/Memory Card manage tool: Samsung Memory Card&UFD Authentication Utility
Download website: http://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/download/tools/
Crucial USB manage tool: Crucial Storage Executive
Download website: http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/support-storage-executive
Intel SSD manage tool: Intel Toolbox
Download website: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/
Completely Wipe Usb Drive Windows
You can learn more on the website of your USB brand. And I will introduce a better way for you.
Permanently Wipe USB Drive with Wipe Freeware
Freeware for internal or external drive wipe can make it much more easier. Here I will recommend you a very effective freeware to manage your USB flash drive. It is safe and effective, you can trust it. IM-Magic Partition Resizer free, it has a good compatibility for computer system, this free version supports most Windows system including Windows7/8/10/vista. You can try it for totally free.
Instructions to Wipe USB Drive on Windows 10/8/7
Step 1: Install IM-Magic Partition Resizer free on your computer, collect your USB flash drive or memory card to your computer, run the software.
Step2: select your USB pen drive, right click it and choose 'Wipe Partition' option. Apply the changes.
Permanently wipe C drive without CD
Then your USB flash drive is permanently wiped successfully.
