A simple trick to make your data unrecoverable is to delete everything from the USB and fill it with random data. However, you need to repeat this step a couple more times to complete the process. In this article, we’ve listed a few other methods to wipe your data off of your USB drive so the data is completely untraceable.
How to Wipe USB Drive on Windows?
When you format a drive, the data on it is not completely destroyed. Data deleted in this way can still be recovered. We’ve listed out some ways to do a complete disk wipe so it cannot be recovered.
From Windows Explorer
You can directly wipe your USB flash drive by formatting from Windows explorer. Formatting will delete all data from the selected drive. Here’s how to do a general drive format:
From Command Prompt
The command prompt also allows the users to format drives. The advantage of using the cmd is that it allows more formatting options. Here’s how you format your drive using the command prompt:
Using Disk Management
Windows also has dedicated disk management software that lets you manage the volumes connected to your PC. You can use this program to manually format individual volumes. Follow these steps to learn how to do it:
Use Third-party Apps
You can also use third-party software to wipe data for you. When you normally format or delete data, it is not completely removed. It is just deallocated until other data replaces it. This deallocated data can be recovered through various means. Special programs are dedicated to doing one work only. While some of them can work great, they can cause some privacy risks. If you are willing to take a risk, you can use third-party software to wipe your USB drive. Bleachbit is open-source software that can help you manage disk space on your PC. Since the data is not cleared and only replaced, the program can basically shred all data on the drive which makes it unrecoverable. Bleachbit is available for all operating systems, including macOS and Linux operating system.
Use Linux OS
Linux operating system has an incredible advantage over any other operating system. If any drive sector is corrupt or damaged, other OS won’t be able to format them. It will show you an error that the format failed. Whereas Linux OS separates the corrupt sectors and creates a volume of the remaining good sectors.If you do not have a Linux operating system, you can use a Live Linux operating system on your Windows OS as well. A live Linux is a portable Linux operating system that can be used to boot into a Linux system with minimal features. Here’s how you create a Live Linux:
How to Wipe USB Drive on Mac?
You can either wipe a USB from the disk utility app or from the terminal. Formatting from the disk utility app is a straightforward process, whereas the terminal allows more options and features. Here are the steps for it:
Using Disk Utility
Mac has a dedicated disk utility program that allows you to manage disk space on your PC. Similar to Windows, using the disk utility doesn’t completely wipe the data. These steps will guide you on how to use the disk utility app to format your drive:
Using Terminal
The method to wipe a disk on Mac OS is similar to Linux. And unlike disk utility, this method will make your old data unrecoverable. Even the syntax to format is similar. These steps will guide you on how to use the disk utility app to format your drive:
title: “How To Wipe Usb Drive Completely In Windows” ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-03” author: “Wilma Verde”
A simple trick to make your data unrecoverable is to delete everything from the USB and fill it with random data. However, you need to repeat this step a couple more times to complete the process. In this article, we’ve listed a few other methods to wipe your data off of your USB drive so the data is completely untraceable.
How to Wipe USB Drive on Windows?
When you format a drive, the data on it is not completely destroyed. Data deleted in this way can still be recovered. We’ve listed out some ways to do a complete disk wipe so it cannot be recovered.
From Windows Explorer
You can directly wipe your USB flash drive by formatting from Windows explorer. Formatting will delete all data from the selected drive. Here’s how to do a general drive format:
From Command Prompt
The command prompt also allows the users to format drives. The advantage of using the cmd is that it allows more formatting options. Here’s how you format your drive using the command prompt:
Using Disk Management
Windows also has dedicated disk management software that lets you manage the volumes connected to your PC. You can use this program to manually format individual volumes. Follow these steps to learn how to do it:
Use Third-party Apps
You can also use third-party software to wipe data for you. When you normally format or delete data, it is not completely removed. It is just deallocated until other data replaces it. This deallocated data can be recovered through various means. Special programs are dedicated to doing one work only. While some of them can work great, they can cause some privacy risks. If you are willing to take a risk, you can use third-party software to wipe your USB drive. Bleachbit is open-source software that can help you manage disk space on your PC. Since the data is not cleared and only replaced, the program can basically shred all data on the drive which makes it unrecoverable. Bleachbit is available for all operating systems, including macOS and Linux operating system.
Use Linux OS
Linux operating system has an incredible advantage over any other operating system. If any drive sector is corrupt or damaged, other OS won’t be able to format them. It will show you an error that the format failed. Whereas Linux OS separates the corrupt sectors and creates a volume of the remaining good sectors.If you do not have a Linux operating system, you can use a Live Linux operating system on your Windows OS as well. A live Linux is a portable Linux operating system that can be used to boot into a Linux system with minimal features. Here’s how you create a Live Linux:
How to Wipe USB Drive on Mac?
You can either wipe a USB from the disk utility app or from the terminal. Formatting from the disk utility app is a straightforward process, whereas the terminal allows more options and features. Here are the steps for it:
Using Disk Utility
Mac has a dedicated disk utility program that allows you to manage disk space on your PC. Similar to Windows, using the disk utility doesn’t completely wipe the data. These steps will guide you on how to use the disk utility app to format your drive:
Using Terminal
The method to wipe a disk on Mac OS is similar to Linux. And unlike disk utility, this method will make your old data unrecoverable. Even the syntax to format is similar. These steps will guide you on how to use the disk utility app to format your drive:
