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Delete External Hard Drive

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Summary: This blog sheds light on the importance of permanently erasing data in your external hard drive and introduces you to BitRaser File Eraser– a failsafe, permanent and secure file erasure tool, designed to destroy the contents of your external hard drive and maintain your data privacy. Download the software from the button below:

An external hard drive harbors our documents, pictures, videos, music and other personal files. They are essential storage places for many of our personal, professional and sensitive information. In fact, many people use external hard drive as a backup storage device for their PC. Nevertheless, sometimes the data in the external hard drive needs to be permanently erased. Let us see why.

Key Reasons to wipe your hard drive clean

1. Data Privacy issues: When you decide to discard, sell or exchange your storage media, you need to first permanently erase its contents. This is true for both actively used hard drives and drives which have reached the end of their life terms. Erasing the contents of your user hard drive prevents its unauthorized usage.

2.Virus corruption: Sometimes, the data in your hard drive might become corrupted due to a virus or malware attack. To get rid of the virus, it is important to wipe the drive clean.

  • In Windows 10, you can easily open the Disk Management console by right-clicking Start button and choose ' Disk Management option from the Start menu'. In Disk Management, locate the external hard disk and the partition you want to remove. Right-click on the partition and select Delete Volume from the context menu.
  • Safely remove function may not work because of activity in your external hard drive because of various reasons like Anti-virus scan, spy-ware bot, files accessed by you etc. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL and terminate all functions what might possibly access your HDD and then do safely remove.
  • I've tried moving the file out of my hard drive which worked and then deleting it which was fine but the file remained in the external hard drive as I'd only created a copy. I can't figure out how to delete files I don't want. Deleting everything on the hard drive is out of the question. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Methods to Erase files from external hard drive

To wipe a hard drive means to completely erase the drive of all its information. Deleting everything does not wipe a hard drive and formatting does not usually either. You'll need to take an extra step so the data can't be easily reconstructed later.

In the passage below, we will discuss the different software methods to delete the files from an external hard drive

1. Delete external hard drive files using your PC settings

You can attach your external hard drive to a PC and then delete the files in your hard drives one by one. The File Explorer feature of your PC allows you to delete the files in your External hard drive. All you need to do is to right click on selected file and click delete button.

Alternatively, you can also decide to format all the files in your external hard drive (should you choose to). All you need to do is to select the external hard drive, right click on hard drive from your PC's interface and click on Format (see Image 2)

2. Delete external hard drive files using CMD

You can also delete your external hard drive files using your PC's command prompt. Follow the steps below

  1. Press Windows+R button to open the Run command
  2. Enter CMD in the Run window and press Enter
  3. In the CMD window, type diskpart and press Enter
  4. Next, type list disk
  5. Then select disk #(make the selection of external hard drive)
  6. Type clean all to remove all files from the selected disk

3. Permanently erase external hard drive with File Erasure


Deleting using your files using your PC or Mac's system settings doesn't wipe the files from your computer. Any data recovery software can easily trace and recover the files.

A file erasure software is the prescribed method to permanently delete files from your hard drive. A file erasure software functions by overwriting on top of the files you wish to delete. This overwriting can be done once or multiple times. As a result of the erasure, the files become unreadable and beyond the capacity of a data recovery software. This is known as erasure beyond recovery and only an efficient file erasure software could accomplish that.

BitRaser File Eraser to permanently erase your external hard drive files

BitRaser File Eraser is a recommended file erasure software that can easily and efficiently erase all contents of your external hard drive. This way, you can securely destroy your data and make it inaccessible to anyone. You can enjoy all its features, free of cost for 30 days. It is available for Mac systems as well.

Following are the key features of the BitRaser Software

1) Erase all type of files and formats, including app traces, Internet histories, deleted data. Xbox number for support.

2) Easy to use DIY tool

3) Compliant with 3 International data erasure standard

4) Single click interface

How to use BitRaser File Eraser to erase external hard drive files

  1. Download BitRaser File Eraser for Windows.
  2. Install and launch the software

3. Click on Erase File & Folder, the third option on the left pane.

Delete External Hard Drive Mac

4. Click on 'Add Items' button and a dialog box will open. Expand the selection under 'This PC' and scroll down to access the hard drives. You will also see the external hard drive in the list

5. Next, select the files and folders you want to erase from the drive. You can click on the arrow to expand the external hard drive volume. After you have made the selection, click on Erase Now button.

6. Next, a dialog box will appear, confirming the Erasure process. Please confirm to proceed.

7. The tool will erase the specified file and you will get an Erasure complete window.

Conclusion

Our external hard drives are our key information assets. They contain many of our private and sensitive information and for many users, they act as the source of their PC backup. In this blog, we discussed the importance of permanently erasing hard drive data and explored the BitRaser File Eraser– a recommended data erasure software, designed to securely and permanently wipe the contents of your external hard drive.

Delete

How to remove partition on external hard drive:

  • In Windows 10, you can easily open the Disk Management console by right-clicking Start button and choose 'Disk Management option from the Start menu'.
  • In Disk Management, locate the external hard disk and the partition you want to remove.
  • Right-click on the partition and select Delete Volume from the context menu.

How to Remove a Partition From External Hard Drive in Windows 10

'I just purchased a 500gb external USB HDD. It has a small partition of 400mb that I want to combine with the other partition to have one partition. The small partition is reported as a CD drive and UDF file system and has data. The large partition is an NTFS partition. What is the best way to delete the small partition? Can I or should I do it form Disk Management?'

3 Ways to Remove Partition on External Hard Drive Windows 10

The guide of external hard drive partition removal in Windows 10 applies to all the people who have the demands similar to the following examples.

  1. 1. Try to partition a new external hard drive into several chunks.
  2. 2. Windows asks you to delete a partition on an external hard drive for a clean install.
  3. 3. Remove all the external hard drive partitions before sending it away.
  4. 4. Can't delete external hard drive partitions in your way.

We cannot think of all the scenarios of deleting a partition or partitions on an external hard drive in Windows 10/8.1/8/7/XP/Vista or even in Windows Server. However, this post almost covers all the possible solutions you could find on the internet. So, just read on and pick up one to make it manageable for you. Best pdf viewer for windows 8.

X change game online. Tip: Prepare an external hard drive enclosure so that you can put the drive in it and plug it into your Windows 10 computer. Make sure that your Windows 10 computer recognizes your external drive and assigns it a drive letter.

Solution 1. Remove Partition on External Hard Drive via EaseUS Partition Master Free

The most reliable way to delete a partition or partitions on a hard drive or external hard drive is using third-party software. Here are the reasons for using free partition software:

  • It is free and easy-to-use
  • The user interface is clear and easy
  • You can get additional tech support
  • The software has many other highlights like migrating OS, wiping HDD, resizing partitions and more

Click the download button to download EaseUS Partition Master Free. It's a free partition manager that comes with tons of hard drive partition management features. Follow the steps below to remove hard drive partitions.

Notice:
1. Connect your SD card, USB or external hard drive to PC before the deletion.
2. Save important data from the external storage device to another secure location in advance.

https://ceorevizion455.weebly.com/australian-affiliate-networks.html. Step 1: Launch EaseUS Partition Master on your PC

On the main interface, right-click on the partition of the SD card, USB or external hard drive and select 'Delete'.

Step 2: Confirm the deletion

Click 'OK' to confirm that you need to delete the partition on the selected device.

Step 3: Keep changes

Click the 'Execute Operation' button at the top corner and save all changes by clicking 'Apply'.

Solution 2. Remove Windows 10 Partition on External Hard Drive with Disk Management

You can also remove external hard drive partitions with Disk Management. It is provided by Windows OS for the purpose of performing basic disk management operations, such as delete partition, format partition, create a partition, shrink volume, etc. Learn how to remove partitions on the external hard drive using Windows 10 Disk Management.

Step 1. Open Windows 10 Disk Management program. You got the three easiest ways to go.

  • Navigate to 'This PC > Manage > Disk Management'.
  • Enter diskmgmt.msc in the lower-left search box and click diskmgmt.msc on the list.
  • Press Windows + R to open 'Run > type diskmgmt.msc' in the empty box and tap 'OK'.

Step 2. Locate the external hard drive in the Disk Management interface, right-click on the partition you don't want anymore, and select 'Delete Volume.'

Delete External Hard Drive Partition

Adobe premiere elements 4 update. Step 3. Click 'Yes' to permit Windows 10 to delete the selected partition of the external hard drive.

Delete External Hard Drive Partition

After the operation, your deleted partition will turn to an unallocated space without a drive letter.

Solution 3. Delete Partitions on External Drive via Windows 10 Command Prompt

If you are familiar with the command line, you can remove partitions in this way. Here are the details on how to remove a partition on external hard drive Windows 10.

Step 1. Press Windows + X to invoke a list where you can find Command Prompt (Admin). Click it to open the Windows 10 Command Prompt window.

Step 2. Input diskpart, and type the following command lines each after and press enter.

  • list disk (All your hard disks will appear, and they are listed as disk 0, disk 1.)
  • select disk + number (Select disk 1 if your external hard drive is disk 1)
  • list partition (All your external hard drive partitions will appear)
  • select partition + number (Select partition 1 if you are trying to delete partition 1 on your external hard drive)
  • delete partition (This command deletes the selected partition)

After putting all those demands, you can delete the partition off from your external hard drive completely.

Additional Help - How to Partition a Hard Drive in Windows 10/8/7

Delete External Hard Drive Partition

After deleting the partitions, the partition space will be turned into unallocated space. You can resize the external hard drive by extending partition space, creating a new partition, and more. EaseUS Partition Master can partition a hard drive or external hard drive with simple steps:

Conclusion

Delete Hard Drive Partitions

That's all the way to remove/delete a partition on the external hard drive in Windows 10/8/7. You can also try these methods if you want to delete partitions on an SD card, USB drive, an SSD drive, and more. If you want to repartition your device after the removal, turn to EaseUS partition software. It can do you a great favor in managing disk space and improving performance.





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