Securely remove data from a hard disk

Launch a web browser and visit www.snipca.com/x1726 (You can also click on the link in the intro to open the page). When the page appears, click the ‘Download Killdisk Suite (Free)v5.2’ link located in the middle of the page. If the File Download Security Warning dialogue box appears, click Save and then choose a location for the downloaded file, like the Windows Desktop. Firefox users should select Save File to save the download to Firefox’s default download folder.

Now locate and double-click the downloaded file and then work through the installation wizard. When the Select Components dialogue box appears, remove the ticks from all the options except ‘Active@ Killdisk for Windows’ and ‘User’s Manual’. Now click the Next button and, in the resulting window, click Next once more. Ensure the two tick boxes on the last dialogue box remain unticked and then click Finish. Once the installation is complete, launch Killdisk from the Start menu (point to the Active@ Killdisk FREE Suite program group, then Active@ Killdisk for Windows and then click Active@ Killdisk for Windows).

On the left of the window is a list of all attached hard disks, while the section to the right provides further information about the disk that’s selected. From the list of hard disks on the left, click the name of the one from which data needs to be securely erased: further details about the disk will appear on the left. Now double-click the disk and browse through the files on it, to verify that it’s the correct disk (remember, once the information is erased with Killdisk there’s no way back). In this example, we’re erasing data on a USB memory key.

Place a tick in the small box next to the disk (in the left-hand pane) and click the Kill button at the top of the window. The Kill dialogue box will now appear. Ensure the drive listed in the ‘To Erase’ box is the right one – if not, click Cancel. There is an Erase Method dropdown menu, but this free version of Killdisk offers only the one option – ‘One pass’ (meaning the entire drive will be written over once). Now move onto the next step.

Click on the Start button at the bottom of the window. A Confirm Action window will now appear as a final check. This is your last chance to check that the correct disk has been selected. In order to proceed, type ‘ERASE-ALL-DATA’ (including the hyphens) into the box. When ready, click the Yes button to permanently erase the data.

Killdisk will begin deleting the data on the selected disk. It does this by writing new, blank data over the entire disk. This process can take a long time and will depend on the size of the disk. It could take a few hours to complete. The process can be stopped at any time by pressing the Escape key, but you will not be able to access the portions of the disk that have already been deleted.

Once the erase process has finished, the disk will need to be reformatted before it can be used by Windows. Click Start, then Computer (or My Computer in XP) and then right-click the disk that has been erased. From the list of options that appears, click Format. The Format Local Disk window will appear. Leave all the settings as they are and click the Start button at the bottom of the window. Again, this process may take a while depending on the size of the disk. Once complete, the disk can be used as normal.