Wiping a Windows laptop? Here’s the safest way to erase your personal data – for free

When you replace your old but still functional Windows PC with a shiny new model, you have several options for that gently used device. You can give it away to a friend or family member. You can donate it to a charitable organization like Goodwill (which partners with Dell Reconnect). You can even trade it in for credit or sell it on a third-party site like Swappa or Back Market. 

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Whichever course of action you take, though, your most important task is to permanently delete all your personal files from that PC before you pass it along. With a desktop PC, that might be as easy as swapping out the system drive for a new one. But that’s usually not an option with a laptop, where replacing storage can be impossible or prohibitively expensive. 

For laptops and for desktops where you aren’t replacing the system drive, the simplest route is to reset the PC, choosing the option to remove personal files and reinstall Windows. On a PC running Windows 10, go to Settings > Update & Security > Recovery. On a Windows 11 device, the Reset PC option is under Settings > System > Recovery. Make sure you choose the Remove Everything option, as shown here.

It takes several prompts before you get to the actual reset option (you don’t want to do this accidentally, after all) and if you dig through the settings you can find a Clean Disk option designed to remove all data in addition to removing your files. As an alternative, you can boot from Windows installation media, remove all existing disk partitions, and then perform a clean install.

Either option removes existing personal files, but Microsoft’s documentation cautions that “the data erasure functionality is targeted at consumers and does not meet government and industry data erasure standards.” As a result, it’s possible that someone with advanced technical skills could use forensic tools or data recovery software to access some of the deleted information.

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On modern systems with solid-state drives, you can often find a management utility that includes a Secure Erase command. For Samsung SSDs, use the Samsung Magician program. For Intel SSDs, download and install the Intel Memory and Storage Tool. SSDs from Crucial use the Crucial Storage Executive utility. Microsoft Surface devices support a custom tool called the Microsoft Surface Data Eraser; check the download links in that article to determine whether you need the newer IT Toolkit or the Legacy version for older Surface devices.

Some third-party partition management tools include the option to wipe a disk completely. My favorite for this task is MiniTool Partition Wizard, which includes the Wipe Disk option in free and paid versions.

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You also can use Windows’ built-in encryption tools to ensure that the entire system drive, including unused disk space, is encrypted before performing a clean install. That extra step requires some additional time, but it ensures that any data recovered from anywhere on the drive will be unreadable. And you don’t need any third-party software to get the job done.

Your system drive is fully encrypted by default if you’ve signed in to Windows with a Microsoft account on a modern device that supports BitLocker Device Encryption (BDE). To confirm that your device supports BDE, run the System Information utility (Msinfo32.exe) as an administrator and check the Device Encryption Support entry at the bottom of the System Summary page.

On a system running Windows 10 Pro or Windows 11 Pro, you can use the Manage BitLocker utility (type BitLocker in the search box to find it) to encrypt the system drive and any data drives. Be sure to choose the option to encrypt the entire drive and not just the space that currently contains data.

Also: Where’s your BitLocker recovery key? How to save a copy before the next Windows meltdown

If Device Encryption isn’t available, open a command prompt using the Run As Administrator option and enter this command:

Cipher /W:C:\

That command “zeroes out” unused disk space, overwriting it so that it can’t be recovered. This process can take a long time, so consider letting it run overnight while you concentrate on more important tasks.

This article was originally published on May 12, 2022, and last updated on September 29, 2024.