The main purpose of Disk Drill is data recovery on Mac OS X (it can be a MacBook, Mac Pro, iMac or Mac Mini). If you are using Windows OS - a separate Disk Drill data recovery for Windows is available. The software is easy to install and can be used right away without a tedious learning curve. Download Disk Drill for Mac to recover lost data on your Mac, prevent accidental data loss, backup failing disks. Disk Drill has had 4 updates within the past 6 months. From the developer: Disk Drill is do-it-yourself data recovery software for Windows. It will run on Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8 and 10. If you accidentally deleted critical documents, music, movies, photo or other files from your computer, Disk Drill can help. May 25, 2016 Disk Drill data recovery software is fairly compatible with almost all Windows operating systems including Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10. Disk Drill Free Download The latest version of Disk Drill data recovery software for Windows PC is very less in size (16MB) and absolutely free to download.

Nov 16, 2020 • Filed to: Windows Computer Solutions • Proven solutions

Is Disk Drill a free data recovery program? What does Disk Drill do? How to use disk drill recover deleted files? There are many questions like these about Disk Drill when you are hoping to restore your precious files with the program. This post will explain all the questions aboutDisk Drill free data recovery softwarefor Windows and Mac.

Part 1. What's Disk Drill？

Disk Drill is a freeware fordata recoverythat possesses a clean and easy to understand user interface, coupled with an efficient data recovery algorithm. This provides an easy way for users to scan the PC for lost, damaged, or corrupted files and preview them before undergoing the recovery process.

• It helpsretrieve lost files from partitionsthat have been formatted or have failed to mount.
• It can scanhard drives,partitionsthat have been deleted or lost. External memory devices such as flash drives and SD cards can also be run through the Disk Drill for scanning and data recovery.
• Disk Drill is also able to pull out data from hard drives that have crashed.
• There are different scan options and scan capabilities that Disk Drill can do. For scan options,quick and deep scanscan be made to look for lost, deleted, corrupted, or damaged files.
• Sorting and scanning by file type are also possible with Disk Drill.

Disk Drill is offered in 2 versions: Mac and Windows. These 2 versions are slightly different in data recovery.

Disk Drill for Windows

Like Disk Drill for Mac, the Windows version supports data scanning from various file systems, including NTFS/NTFS5, HFS/HFS+/HFSX, FAT/FAT32/exFAT, EXT3/EXT4 and more. It can recover data from formatted drive, too. However, Forensic features are missing in Disk Drill for Windows. Moreover, Disk Drill 4 for Windows allows users to recover up to 500MB data for free.

Disk Drill for Mac

Disk Drill for Mac can preview and recover protected data with all recovery methods. The deleted files can be labeled by metadata and previewed by thumbnails. iOS & Android Data Recovery are also supported in the Mac versions. However, in Deep Scan, only 300 file signatures can be scanned out, while 400 file signatures can be scanned in the Windows version.

Part 2. Is Disk Drill Safe?

So many features are listed to show what Disk Drill Data Recovery is. But the most important question should be 'Is it a safe program to use?' Yes, Disk Drill can be used torecover deleted or lost files on computer safely. We tested the Disk Drill on 3 computers, respectively Windows 10, Windows 7, and MacBook Pro. When running the software on the computers, it works normally without causing any harm to them and hard drive data.

During the test, we also checked the computer condition, especially in the virus and malware infection. And the anti-virus software told that everything went normally.

Aside from this, the software has a Recovery Fault feature that protects partitions and consequently the files saved from within these parts. This feature makes it easier to recover data should they become corrupted or deleted.

Part 3. Is Disk Drill Really Free

Disk Drill Free Data Recovery claims that it is free for all the users to get data back. However, is it free? The answer is no. Both available for Mac and Windows, Disk Drill Data Recovery has 3 pricing plans, namely basic, pro, and enterprise.

Disk Drill Basic

Usually, Disk Drill Basic is regarded as Disk Drill Free Data Recovery. It has different recovery limitations for Windows and Mac users. Disk Drill Free Data Recovery only supports Mac users toscan and preview files for free. What if you want to recover data on a Mac computer? You have no other choice but to purchase Disk Drill Pro for Mac.

However, Windows users of Disk Drill Basic can not only free scan and preview files but recover up to 500 MB data for free on a Windows computer.

Disk Drill Pro

Disk Drill Pro is the paid version of Disk Drill Basic. By purchasing the Pro version, you can remove the limits of data recovery in the free version and unlock more features, such as rebuilding HFS+, searching lost partitions.

How much does Disk Drill Pro for Mac cost? It is $89 for 1 user up to 3 Macs according to the Disk Drill website. You can also further upgrade it to the lifetime license by paying an extra 29 dollars.

Disk Drill Enterprise

The Enterprise version is the premium version of Disk Drill for business uses. It supports data recovery for up to 10 devices.

Part 4. Disk Drill Review After Test

After learning what Disk Drill is, let's have a snapshot of its advantages and disadvantages.

What We Like

• Disk Drill has a concise user interface that allows even beginners to use the program without hassle.
• It supports data recovery on multiple platforms — this means that Disk Drill is compatible with devices that run with Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android operating systems.
• Support for multiple file types and file systems are available. Even obscure file types can be recognized by thisfile recovery software.
• Disk Drill has an impressive scanning speed. A partition with 500 GB can be run for only an hour using the deep scan function.
• Scans can be stopped, paused, and resumed at your convenience. The use of this software is flexible and easy because you take control of the scan time and schedule.
• The Recovery Vault, a very useful feature of Disk Drill, helps protect your data from total loss because it creates metadata that acts as an extended Recycle Bin for your device.
• It boasts more than file recovery — a full partition recovery is possible with Disk Drill.

What We Don't Like

• The file details aren’t effectively shown, so you do not get information about a file’s quality before recovery.
• Disk Drill only supports the preview and recovery of fewer than 400 types and formats of data, below the average.
• There is no portable version for Disk Drill. Installation of the software is required before you can run it and recover files. This increases the risk of file overwriting, thereby losing the data permanently.
• There is only a 500 MB of file limit for recovery in the free version. This means that you might not be able to retrieve all the files you need, especially if they come in a video format.
• Some users find bugs like difficulty startup of the software, and some incidences report app crashing.
• Some users also complained about staff support because it takes quite a while for them to respond to queries.

Part 5. How to Use Disk Drill Data Recovery?

To use Disk Drill, you would need to install the software first on your computer and run it accordingly, since there is no portable version of this. Here are the steps in recovering lost data using Disk Drill.

Disk Drill Software Free For Windows 10

Step 1Download Disk Drill from their website and install the program by following the instructions.

Step 2Run Disk Drill once it finishes installing in your PC. This will show you all of the drives found in the computer system.

Step 3Choose the specific driver that contains the lost files and click the 'Recover' button.

Step 4After the scan is completed, the window will show all the recoverable files found in that drive.

Step 5Sort through them and review the files that you need to retrieve. You can also opt to recover all files by checking boxes to ensure that no lost or deleted file is missed.

Step 6Wait for the recovery task to finish!

There is no other way to see if Disk Drill works than to try it by yourself. To recover files and ensure that you don’t suffer from crippling data loss, avail of the services offered by Disk Drill. If you want another alternative software that does data recovery efficiently, you may also tryRecoverit Free Data Recovery, also available as a freeware and power-packed unlike most other data recovery software out there. What we most like is that Recoverit supports to recover more than 1000 types and formats of data from all devices.

Summary :

This post lists top 10 free hard drive data wipe software for Windows 10/8/7/Vista/XP. If you want to completely erase all data on hard disk, SSD, external hard drive, USB, etc. on Windows 10/8/7/Vista/XP PC, so as to prevent private data from leaking, you can check the tutorial below.

Brief Introduction of Data Wiping and Deleting

Deleting all the data on your hard drive doesn’t mean the data is no longer existed. They are still located on the hard drive. It just deletes the reference of the data in the allocation table and you can’t find it.

By using some data recovery software, you can recover the deleted data and files. Even if you overwrite some new data to the hard drive, some data may still be able to be recovered if the new data doesn’t occupy the entire cluster space of the old data. Some data may be retrievable from slack space.

If you want to completely wipe hard drive and make the data gone forever and unrecoverable, you can use the hard drive wipe software to remove the data on hard disk permanently.

There are some circumstances you may seek for a piece of free hard drive wipe software. For instance, if you’d like to change a new computer and sell the old one, you may think of completely wiping the whole hard drive of the old computer in case your personal data are wrongly used by other people. Still, before you dispose your old external hard drive or USB flash drive, you may also recur to free hard drive eraser software to erase data on them.

This post lists top 10 hard drive data wiping software for Windows 10/8/7/Vista/XP to let you wipe PC hard disk, SSD, external hard drive, USB, etc. Therefore, you can keep your privacy safe.

Top 10 Hard Drive/Disk Data Wipe/Erase Software for Windows 10/8/7/Vista/XP

#1 MiniTool Partition Wizard

MiniTool Partition Wizard is an all-in-one disk partition manager. It combines many powerful functions into one tool, e.g. wipe disk/partition/volume, create/resize/extend/format drive partition, recover data/partition, clone disk, migrate OS to SSD/HD, convert disk, and more.

It allows you to manage your computer hard disk (basic or dynamic), SSD, external hard drive, USB flash drive, thumb drive, SD card, hardware RAID, etc. from every aspect.

You can utilize this free hard drive wipe software for Windows 10/8/7 to completely erase all data on PC hard drive, external hard drive, USB flash drive, etc. just in a few clicks. Check the 4 simple steps below.

How to completely wipe hard drive/disk data in Windows 10/8/7/Vista/XP PC

Firstly, download and install this 100% clean and free disk wipe software – MiniTool Partition Wizard – on Windows 10/8/7/Vista/XP.

Step 1. Launch the free disk wipe software

You can double click MiniTool Partition Wizard icon on computer screen to run this program. And this software will auto load all drives in your computer.

Step 2. Choose Wipe Disk option

Click the target disk which needs data wiping, and click Clean Disk – Wipe Disk from the left action panel. Or you can right-click the target disk and choose Wipe Disk.

Step 3. Select hard drive wiping method

In the popup window, this free hard drive wipe software offers 5 kinds of disk erasing methods. You can choose one based on your own need. The longer time it takes, the hard drive data will be cleaned more thoroughly.

Step 4. Start wiping all data from PC drive

You can now preview this disk, it becomes all unallocated now. At last, you should hit Apply button on the top-left of this program to carry out the pending operations.

This hard drive data eraser software will start to wipe all data from Windows 10/8/7/Vista/XP hard drive now. And the wiped data cannot be recovered by any data recovery programs any more. Your private data is safe.

How to wipe external hard drive, USB drive permanently in Windows (10)

Step 1. Connect the external hard drive, USB flash drive or SD card to your Windows (10) computer. And launch MiniTool Partition Wizard.

If you don’t find the target external drive you want to erase data from, you can click General > Reload Disk to check again. (Related: External Hard Drive Not Showing Up Fixed)

Step 2. Select the connected external drive and click Wipe Disk option.

Then follow the same 3, 4 step above to completely erase external hard drives in Windows 10/8/7.

Key features of MiniTool Partition Wizard Pro Ultimate:

• Wipe computer/external drive: Support advanced data wiping algorithms. You can use it to wipe whole disk, or wipe separate partitions. It supports all popular file systems.
• Data recovery: Recover selected data or files from local drive, externa hard drive, USB drive, SD card, lost partition, unallocated space, etc.
• Manage basic disk: Migrate OS to new HD or SSD, recover lost partition, delete all partitions, copy/clone disk, rebuild MBR, disk surface test, etc.
• Manage dynamic disk: Wipe/format/create/delete/resize/move/copy volume, change volume cluster size, letter, label, etc.
• Convert hard disk: Convert GPT disk to MBR disk, convert FAT to NTFS or in reverse, convert dynamic disk to basic disk, initialize to MBR/GPT disk, etc.
• Manage hard drive partition: Wipe/format/resize/extend/create/delete/merge/split/move partition, change drive letter, partition label, cluster size, serial number, type ID, etc.
• Bootable media builder: You can create bootable media with it and use the bootable version to wipe hard drive data without losing operating system. And fix computer unbootable issue.
• Space analyzer: Scan and analyze hard disk space and freely delete space-consuming files or folders.
• Disk benchmark:Test hard drive read and write speed and its performance.

#2 DBAN

Another popular free and open source hard drive data wipe software is DBAN. Darik's Boot and Nuke (DBAN) is designed for completely wiping the entire drive permanently. You can choose different wiping methods to erase data from various kinds of drives in Window 10/8/7. It also supports several advanced algorithms like DoD 5220.22-M, random data.

However, you need to burn the ISO image of this software to a flash drive or DVD/CD with a DVD burning software, and then run it from external hard drive when restarting Windows.

#3 Disk Wipe

Disk Wipe is also a top data removal tool. Unlike MiniTool Partition Wizard Pro Ultimate or DBAN which allows you to create a bootable CD/DVD, so that you can use them to wipe personal hard drive data without operating system.

Disk Wipe is a windows app, so you can only run this tool in the existing Windows OS. You cannot use it to wipe hard drive which runs the current operating system. But you can use it to erase internal SSD, external hard drives.

#4 KillDisk

It is also a top free disk wipe tool for Window 10/8/7. It has free version and advanced version. Its free version only has one type of hard drive erasing method, namely, erase hard drive with one pass zeros. If you want to try other ways to wipe hard drive, you need to pay for the professional version.

#5 CCleaner

This cool Windows (10) PC wipe tool also allows you to wipe computer or external drives. You can use it to wipe data from free space on hard drive or wipe the entire drive. Advanced version also needs to pay.

#6 PCDiskEraser

This free disk wipe software enables you to permanently erase all data in the hard drive. It also uses some professional data erasing standards like U.S. Department of Defense 5220.22. The downside of this tool is that it is also downloaded as an ISO file, and you need to burn it to a disk or USB drive before you can use it.

#7 CBL Data Shredder

You can either use this disk wipe freeware in Windows 10/8/7/Vista/XP to wipe external hard drive clean, or boot from it via USB or CD/DVD to erase computer hard drive with OS.

Aside from the provided data sanitation methods, you are also allowed to create custom wiping method.

#8 Eraser

This free hard drive data destruction software provides 10 popular data wiping methods for your choice.

This tool also only runs within Windows, so you can’t use it to wipe computer hard drive which runs the OS. It is compatible with Windows XP-10.

#9 Super File Shredder

This free disk wipe software enables you to drag and drop the hard drive into the program, and then choose one data wiping way to completely destruct the data. It supports traditional hard drives, SSDs, and can work on Windows 10/8/7/Vista/XP.

#10 WipeDisk

This hard drive eraser software offers you several data wipe methods: DoD 5220.22-M, Gutmann, Random Data, Write Zero, etc. You can freely choose to wipe data from free space or all files in the hard drive with this top file eraser. Windows 10 is supported.

Other Free Ways to Wipe Windows 10/8/7 PC Hard Drive

Some of you may think of using Windows own free disk manager Diskpart Utility, Disk Manager to try to erase the entire hard drive.

You can open Windows Disk Manager by pressing Windows and R keys on the keyboard at the same time, and then input diskmgmt.msc. In the Disk Manager window, right-click the disk you’d like to wipe clean and click Format. You can also use Windows Diskpart tool to clean all data on selected hard drive.

However, formatting or cleaning up disk doesn’t mean wiping data for good. You can check below the differences between formatting and wiping a hard drive.

What’s the Difference between Formatting and Wiping a Hard Drive?

The first and most importance difference of formatting and wiping a hard drive is: the data in the formatted hard drive can be recovered with some data recovery software, while data in the erased hard drive can’t be restored.

Disk formatting:

Formatting a hard drive is the process of initializing the hard drive, SSD, USB drive. The formatting process often include: low-level formatting (basic medium preparation), partitioning (make the storage device visible to OS), and high-level formatting (generate a new file system). Formatting a drive generally leaves all data on the disk, and you can use some data recovery tools to get the data back if the drive is not overwritten. If you want to avoid the recovery of your private sensitive data, you can use one of top 10 free hard drive data wipe software to permanently erase the data.

Disk wipe:

Also known as data erasure or data sanitization. It is the real permanent data removal process and it’s impossible to retrieve data from a wiped disk. Data wiping aims to completely destroy all data from the hard drive or other storage devices. It uses zeros and ones to overwrite data to fill into all hard disk sectors. Through this overwriting, the old data on the hard drive is unrecoverable any more. Most of the disk wipe software listed above allows you to select a specific wiping standard based on your own needs, and lets you remove all data from the device.

How to Destroy a Hard Drive

If you think the completely hard drive data wiping is not enough, and you still worry about your privacy, then you may turn to the last draw: destroy the old hard drive permanently with professional hard drive destruction tools before disposing it.

You may try these hard drive destroy solutions: destroy the magnetic platter inside, use screwdriver to remove and destroy most parts of the hard disk, or use a hammer to totally destroy the hard drive.

How to Clean Hard Drive with Best Free Hard Drive Cleaner

If your hard drive is running out of space, and you only want to free up some space, then wiping the hard drive is not your choice.

A professional hard drive space analyzer and cleaner would help. MiniTool Partition Wizard new function – Space Analyzer – helps you easily scan the disk or specific partition to figure out which files occupy most space and allows you to directly delete unneeded large files. You can also use it to easily extend the C drive.

Check the related guides:

How to Recover Data from Hard Disk, External Hard Drive, USB, etc.

Once you wipe the hard drive with professional hard drive data eraser, the hard drive will leave no traces of the old data.

However, if you mistakenly delete some files or format the drive, you can easily recover the deleted or lost data with MiniTool Partition Wizard Pro Ultimate.

This program equips two hard drive data recovery functions: data recovery, partition recovery. Here we’ll introduce how to recover deleted or lost data from computer hard drive, SSD, external hard drive, USB flash drive, etc.

software, free download

Get MiniTool Partition Wizard Pro Ultimate below and install it on your Windows 10/8/7/Vista/XP computer. If you’d like to recover data from external drives, you need to connect it with your computer first.

Step 1. Launch this best data recovery software, and click Data Recovery function in the toolbar.

Disk Drill Software Free For Windows 7

Step 2. Choose which device you’d like to recover data from. And click Scan. Optionally you can click Settings to choose to scan specific types of files.

Step 3. This software will begin scanning the chosen hard drive or partition, and display the recovered files in the plate.

Step 4. Find the files you need and click Save icon to store them to a new drive.

Conclusion

By browsing the top 10 free hard drive data wipe software, hope you find your desired way to completely erase the entire Windows (10) computer hard drive, SSD, external hard drive, USB/thumb drive, SD card, etc.

Need to mention that the all-in-one disk wipe software for Windows 10/8/7 – MiniTool Partition Wizard Pro Ultimate – is also an easy-to-use data recovery program. You can also use it recover deleted/lost data or partitions with ease.

Disk Drill Data Recovery software, free download For Windows

If you still have questions about how to completely destroy data in hard drive for protecting privacy, or have other suggestions about MiniTool software, please visit Help or FAQ page or contact [email protected].