How to Wipe External Hard Drive Without Recovery?

Rollins Duke
Published: October 22nd, 2025 • 8 Min Read

Trying to figure out “How to Wipe External Hard Drive?” If you then it is important to understand that there are multiple ways you can format an external Hard Drive. You can simply connect the external drive to your computer and use the cipher command or the built-in disk utility to erase the External Hard Drive. These methods help you recycle your old hard drive. But these methods do not make your data unrecoverable. In order to be 100% assured about the data destruction, use an industry-grade Software to delete files from external hard drive permanently.

Does Formatting an External Hard Drive Wipe It

If you think that, simply formatting or resetting is enough to wipe a Seagate external hard drive. Then no! There is a difference between wiping and deleting external hard drive data.

Data from your external hard drive can still be recovered and misused after wiping through manual fixes like Quick and full formatting.

This is because formatting an external hard drive is simply removing the navigation structure of the file, not the data itself. In order to wipe external hard drive and make the data non-recoverable, it is important to overwrite the file to ensure no recovery tool can restore it.

When Is It Important To Wipe External Hard Drive?

Scenarios where erasing data and formatting the external hard drive is required:

To clean and reuse the external hard drive.
Before disposing of your HDD or SSD, so that your data cannot be recovered or misused.
In case you detect a virus or malware in the external HD.
Before lending or reselling your external hard drive.
In order to fix errors or Corruption.
Many businesses need to wipe external hard drive as per legal compliance.

Best Way to Securely Wipe External Hard Drive

Using the BitWipe Data Wipe Tool is the most efficient & secure way to Erase External Hard Drive data within minutes. It is an industry-level tool that helps you format an external hard drive data permanently so that no one can recover your data after disposal or for reuse purposes.

This robust tool enables you to Wipe Clean all kinds of external hard drives, be it HDD, SSD, or Hybrid, that work on both Mac & Windows OS.

No longer worry about data breach or recovery, or misuse when you resell, share, or dispose of them. Reset the External Hard Drive permanently with our advanced software. Free trial version also available.

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How to Completely Wipe External Hard Drive? Pro Way

Here is a step-by-step guide to permanently wiping data from an external hard drive using the professional tool. Note that you can use the tool on both Mac and Windows.

Connect the External hard drive to your computer.
Download and install the software on your system.
From “Select File,” choose “Logical Drives”
Select the externally connected hard drive.
Choose all the folders you need to erase from the External Hard Drive.
Choose the Overwrite methods as Bitwipe Simple (1 Pass).
Click on “Wipe” to securely clear all data from the external hard drive.

Why Choose The Tool To Erase External Hard Drive Data?

Reasons to always prefer a professional software to erase an external Hard Drive over the manual method:

Permanent Deletion: It guarantees complete erasing of files, so the data can no longer be accessible. Meeting International Erasure Standards.
Easy to Use: Quickly and easily erase data from an external hard drive without technical or complicated setups.
Selectively Erase Data: Selectively wipe Data from external Hard Drive based on date and file formats.
Drive Health Monitoring: Helps you check the condition and reliability of your hard drives before you wipe external hard drive.
Tech Support: Our reliable team is available 24/7 through live chat if you need any help clearing files from an external hard drive.
Customise Tool: You can modify and add new features to meet your business & personal external hard disk data deletion requirements.

Alternative Methods: Wipe External Hard Drive Manually

For those wondering, “Can I wipe my external hard drive without a tool? And reuse it?” So, to answer this, “Yes,” you can fully format the external hard drive using manual approaches, too, like using the diskpart command in CLI or disk utility. However, if data safety is not your primary concern, you can also use the “Simple Format”. Let us discuss each step by step manually.

Method 1: Format External Hard Drive

You can wipe and reformat external hard drive manually.

Keep in mind this method only deletes data pointers and does not sanitise the external Hard Drive. Using this method is only helpful in case you need to clean external hard drive to fix errors or for personal use.

Follow the steps given below:

Press Windows + R to open the Run Dialog Box.
Type diskmgmt.msc
From the Disk Management system. Select the External Hard Drive.
Right-click and press “Format”
Finally, Press OK to wipe external hard drive.

You can also quick format an external hard drive to erase all data. By simply opening the file explorer. Right-click on the external hard drive and then press “Format”

Method 2: Wipe External Hard Drive Mac With Disk Utility

To erase all data from an external hard drive in a Mac computer using Disk Utility. Using Disk Utility is a great alternative to manual formatting, as it can perform multi-pass overwrite, but there is no guarantee of erasure, and your data can still be recovered.

Here are the steps to erase data from external hard drive in Mac.

Connect your external Hard Drive to the Mac system.
Go to Applications >> Utilities >>Disk Utility.
Select external drive.
Click on Erase.
From Security Options, choose “Most Secure” for multiple overwriting passes.
Finally hit Erase.

Method 3: Using diskpart command to Erase External Hard Drive

You can permanently delete files from external hard drive using the command line interface and be worry-free about your data. Though this method is extremely helpful but it is only efficient in the case of HDD. Many beginner users find it extremely complicated to wipe external hard drive with this method.

Press Windows + R and type cmd to open the command prompt.
Type in diskpart
Allow DiskPart to make changes, and the system Diskpart CLI will open.
Enter list disk
Select your external hard drive
Type in clean all
Then exit DiskPart by entering exit.

Professional External Drive Wiping Tool vs Manual Methods

Let us understand how manual methods to wipe and reformat data from external hard drive are different from using industry-grade software.

Feature	Professional Wiping Tool	Manual Methods
Data Recovery	Not possible	Possible
User Friendly	Easy to use	Technical, complicated
Certification	Custom Data Wipe Certificate	Not provided
Data Sanitization	Meets international standards	Basic deletion

Conclusion

We hope you have now learnt “How to Completely Wipe External Hard Drive” and though there are manual ways like using diskpart and the format option. They do not ensure permanent deletion of all data from the external hard drive without recovery in all scenarios. Which can risks if you plan to resell or dispose of your external hard drive? Which is why using a professional External Drive Wiping Tool is the best way to format external hard drive. Download the tool today to make your external hard drive data unrecoverable. And if you have any queries left, feel free to contact our tech support team through the Live Chat option below.

FAQs: Wipe External Hard Drive

Q1: Does destroying the external hard drive erase everything?

Yes, physically damaging the hard drive makes the data impossible to access. But this method is only useful in case you need to dispose of your old external HDD.

Q2: How to securely clear and wipe a hard drive?

To securely wipe external hard drive data, you can use an industry-grade External Drive Wiping Tool, as it not only deletes all data from your external drive in a few simple clicks. It also ensures your data is not recoverable, that too without any technical hassle

Q3: Should I format an external hard drive?

Yes, it is recommended to delete all data from the external hard drive before disposing of or recycling it, to prevent data theft and misuse. However is always recommended to back up important data to prevent data loss.

Q4: Does Formatting an External Hard Drive Wipe It?

No, formatting an external drive is not equivalent to wiping it. Formatting does not delete or overwrite the data; it just deletes the navigation index of the file so that it can not be normally accessed. But the data can still be retrieved and accessed through the advanced recovery software.