Disk Wipe

When you select a physical device the Wipe command processes all logical drives consecutively erasing data in unoccupied areas (free clusters and system areas) and leaving existing data intact. Unallocated space (where no partition exists) has been erased as well.

Note: If you want to erase ALL data (existing and deleted) from the hard drive device permanently, see Disk Erase.

If KillDisk detects that a partition has been damaged or it is not safe to proceed KillDisk does not wipe data in that area. The reason it does not proceed: partition might contain an important data.

There are some cases where partitions on a device cannot be wiped. Some examples: an unknown or unsupported file system, a system volume or an application start up drive. In these cases the Wipe command is disabled. If you select a device and the Wipe button is disabled select individual partitions (drives) and wipe them separately.

To Wipe out a disk or volume:

  1. Select a disk or volume to wipe out in Disk Explorer > Local Devices View. You may select multiple disks/volumes to be wiped out simultaneously
  2. Execute Wipe command from Actions menu (use the context menu, right mouse click)
    Figure 1: Initiating the Wipe operation
  3. Confirm Wipe Options
    Use tabbed views to adjust Disk Wipe options if necessary. Available options:
    Figure 2: Selecting erase method for the wipe:
  4. Select the areas of the disks to be wiped. For each disk you can select individual partitions.
  5. Click Start to reach the final step before erasing data. Confirm Wipe action and process starts.
  6. The progress of the wiping procedure will be monitored in the Disk Wiping screen.
    To stop the process at any time click the STOP button for a particular disk. Click the STOP ALL button to cancel wiping for all selected disks. Please note that all the existing applications and data will not be touched. The data that has been wiped from unoccupied sectors is not recoverable.
    Figure 3: Disk Wipe Progress (Local Devices & Disk Bays Views)

  7. Optional: Select the wiped partition click File Browser toolbar button to inspect the work that has been done.
    KillDisk scans the system/root records of the partition. The Browser tab appears. Existing file/folder names appear with a multicolor icon and deleted file/folder names appear with a gray-colored icon. If the wiping process completed correctly the data residue in these deleted file clusters and the place these files hold in the directory/system records has been removed. You should not see any gray-colored file names or folder names in the wiped partition.
You will see a confirmation dialog when the process is complete. Now you may print Erase Certificates
Note: If there are any errors, for example due to bad clusters, they will be reported on the interactive screen and in the Log. If such a message appears you may cancel the operation or continue wiping data.