[RedSwirl]

I'm told that just reinstalling Windows and telling it to securely format the drives is enough but I want to be sure.

I already have a W10 recovery USB drive set up (the PC isn't eligible for W11 and if whoever I sell it to is concerned about W10's impending EOL I'll just tell them to install Linux) but I want to securely wipe both storage drives before I reinstall a clean OS.

Both SSDs are internal. One is the SanDisk M.2 SSD that came standard and another is a Crucial SATA SSD I added later. Is there any third-party software that's the most trusted or something?

I'm not worried about backing anything up because I already switched to a new PC two years ago and have just been putting off wiping the old one till now. I've also already logged it out of everything I can think of.

 

[Done_Fishin]

You can do whatever you want to do purely by using a DOS or the command app.

I was doing some work some time back and forgot to remove my 128GB flash drive. I was using commands to delete an older flash drive preparing for using it for a boot drive. I forget exactly what I was doing but it wasn't going according to plan, requiring several reboots. After about the 10th reboot and having seen that the list drive command ALWAYS came up the same, I went into auto mode, and as I gave the command to clear the flash drive I caught the info about it deleting all data from the 128GB drive. By which time it was too late. My data was recoverable from backups and downloading from sources, but no recovery software could find any traces of the old files on the drive.

Just doublecheck that you have the right drive before hitting enter after typing clean.

 

[MPR]

Doing a clean install of Windows will wipe the Windows partition clean of any previous data but not necessarily the entire drive if it has other partitions, nor will it wipe physically separate drives clean.

I personally, use CCleaner for many of my computer management needs but there are also other apps that can do this as well. If you want to retain your current system install but just make sure that any file "leftovers" in areas not currently occupied are wiped, CCleaner can clear free disk space without affecting your installed apps and data in any way. It also can securely wipe an entire drive if you wish.

Even when files are "deleted," from the Recycle Bin, the magnetic media of a HDD will retain the digital information. "Deletion" of a file from the Recycle Bin or directly via a Powershell command, just changes the file's name to tell Windows to ignore it and free up its previously-occupied disk space. The physical data contained in the magnetic media of the HDD remains j tact though unless overwritten.

Note that wiping an SSD is not as important as wiping a HDD is. With an SSD, the electronic data is scattered randomly among the memory cells. While it's technically possible to recover smaller files deleted from an SSD intact if you try to do so immediately after they are deleted, it's highly unlikely that you will be able to recover a file intact after even a few hours have passed of the system being operated, particularly if TRIM is enabled, which it should be for most SSDs. What you generally get back is random digital gobbledygook with no structure.

Note that while it might be beneficial to perform a few additional passes of overwriting when wiping a HDD to remove any magnetic "ghosts" in the media, this is not necessary for an SSD, nor is it desirable. Flash memory cells have a limited number of re-write cycles before they can no longer be used reliably. This is due to the way flash memory stores data, by trapping electrons in a floating gate within the cell. Each write operation to the cell physically stresses the insulator surrounding the gate and, over time, this stress can lead to the cell becoming leaky or shorted, preventing it from holding a charge and thus losing its ability to store data.

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[spunk.funk]

If you want to wipe the drives, you can use DBAN or Kill Disk

 

[HavFun]

if whoever I sell it to is concerned about W10's impending EOL I'll just tell them to install Linux

Sounds easy but it is NOT THAT EASY. Worldwide, Linux accounts for 4% of the O/Ss being used. And probably 95% of current compter users have never used Unix or Linux on a computer in their lifetime. Changing to Linux may seem like the simple and obvious solution to every concern about Win10... but it is a HUGE DEAL for somebody who has no idea about what software is or isn't available to use with Linux. My wife would FreakTFOut if I installed Linux on her Win10 laptop, for example.

Somebody used to Windows install/setup.exe will choke on Package Managers, compiling the source, Docker/Podman, Homebrew, Conda, coexistence, containers, understanding error messages. And so much more. Only people "into" computers will even consider Linux... the average computer user has never seen anything but Windows or Mac O/S.

While Linux has smoothed-over many fiddly aspects of Unix, it is NOWHERE NEAR the simplified user experience you get with Windows or Mac O/S. And if people need to use specific programs like MS Office, they can't run that on Linux without going to the online version (subscription) for $100-$130 a year vs. as little as $20 forever if your employer uses Microsoft Office and gets the Microsoft deal for employees to install Office at home legally for $20, one time fee. If the new owner of the laptop with Linux on it does`n't want to spend the money for Office online, then they have to get into all kinds of shenanigans that are fine for people "into" computers.

There won't be many casual comptuer users who will even understand how complex "Just install Linux" is.

 

[spunk.funk]

Are you selling a desktop computer with 2 drives? or just the drives?

As stated, if you are selling a computer with drives attached, you can wipe the drive, but if want a quicker sale from a non techy, after Wiping, I would boot off of the Windows 10 Installer and do a Custom install. After wiping the secondary drive, both drives will be all Unallocated Space. In Where do you to install Windows? I would partition and format the secondary drive NTFS. Leaving it blank.
On the disk to install Windows, Select it and click Next. This will start the Windows 10 installer.
t
You can shut down the computer after first reboot during the install. When the new user turns on his computer, it will start where you left off. The new user can connect to their network and type in their Microsoft Account or Create their own Local User Name and Password. They can decide to continue with 10 or install Linux.

Just leaving the drives blank may confuse the non techy.

 

[sobeit]

I do not use software, I will format the drive, fill it with media files, format the drive and fill it with media files again. Format the drive one more time, then do the factory install.

 

[spunk.funk]

Overwriting a drive with data will usually be enough to clear a drive of data for the normal user, but the OP asked about Securely Erasing a drive which means overwriting it with all 0's or 1's using a 3rd party software.

 

[MPR]

Remember that Windows comes with its own utility to securely overwrite the drive with 0s -- the CLEAN ALL command under DISKPART. It takes quite a while to run on a large HDD, somewhat less time on a fast SSD. As I've mentioned, this will cause some permanent wear on an SSD but I guess if you are going to be selling the computer anyway that's someone else's problem.

Syntax: CLEAN [ALL]

ALL Specifies that each and every byte\sector on the disk is set to
zero, which completely deletes all data contained on the disk.

On master boot record (MBR) disks, only the MBR partitioning information
and hidden sector information are overwritten. On GUID partition table
(GPT) disks, the GPT partitioning information, including the Protective
MBR, is overwritten. If the ALL parameter is not used, the first 1MB
and the last 1MB of the disk are zeroed. This erases any disk formatting
that had been previously applied to the disk. The disk's state after
cleaning the disk is 'UNINITIALIZED'.