It also supports the advanced algorithms like DoD 5220-22.M, US Army, and Peter Guttman. It can wipe hard drives, memory sticks, SD cards, etc. However, if that is not a problem for you, then the program is great! It’s portable and doesn’t require any installation, so you can carry it around on a USB stick or just email it to yourself. And since it’s a Windows app, it can really only erase hard drives that are Windows formatted (NTFS, FAT32, FAT, etc). The only downside is that it is a Windows app, so you have to run it from within an already existing operating system, whereas the other two mentioned above can be booted to using a CD or floppy disk.

Disk WipeĪnother good freeware app is Disk Wipe. If you need to erase a large number of disks, it might be worth the monetary investment, otherwise you’re good with the free version. You can use the program from within Windows directly, via DOS or use bootable media so you can wipe any disk whether it was running Windows, Linux, OS X, etc. If you do purchase the program, then you have a great set of 17 choices for deleting your data: Definitely DBan is better since you can use the DoD 5220.22-M protocol. The free version only has one way to delete the data on a hard drive (erasing with one-pass zeroes), but it’s still good enough for a decent hard drive wipe. The professional version is definitely better than DBan in terms of options, but it’s not worth shelling out $40 or $50. KillDisk comes in two flavors: Free and Professional.

If, for some reason, DBan does not work for you, you can try out the other programs mentioned below.

I’ve used this program several times and have found that it does an excellent job erasing data on many different types of hard drives. You can choose from different wipe methods including Gutmann Wipe, Department of Defense Short and Medium and others.

Erase drive