Here is everything you need to know to wipe a hard drive safely

Let's start. Windows 10

Windows 10, as mentioned above, has a dedicated recovery tool where you can restart your computer and wipe data from the disk at the same time.

To do this, you need to open "Settings", go to "Update and Security" and click the "Recovery" option.

Now in the "Reset this computer" section click on the "Get started" button.

Next, you will be asked if you want to keep your files or delete everything, select the last option, and click "Next", then click "Reset".

As a result of your actions, the computer goes through the reset process and reinstalls Windows. Then, during the reboot, you can go through the Windows setup process. But, this is not necessary if you plan to sell or transfer your computer to someone else, you can simply turn it off at this stage.

Windows 7

Resetting Windows 7 happens a little differently than in Windows 10 or 8.1. To return your Windows 7 hard drive to factory settings, you need:

• a recovery partition;

• Windows 7 installation disk.

Click the Start button and at once open the Control Panel. Next, select Recovery and on the next screen, click the Advanced recovery methods link.

Note: If your computer does not have a recovery partition, you will receive an error message here. Then you will need an installation disk to proceed with resetting Windows 7.

On the next screen, you will see various options for reinstalling and resetting the system.

Select the appropriate option, then you will be prompted to create a backup copy of the data.

Select Skip, then click Restart.

There we'll be able to reinstall and configure Windows 7, thus destroying the previous installation.

The program has a high potential and provides a maximally deep scan of each partition of the disk so as not to miss a single lost file. It is also possible to convert any selected file system (FAT, ReFS, UFS; HFS, NTFS, ReiserFS, APFS (reader mode), RomFS (reader mode); Reiser4, XFS, Ext2, Ext3, and Ext4.)

For a detailed analysis of the contents of partitions disk. Forget about the limitations of recovery: you can recover up to 1 PB of data of any format. Also, after any scan, you can see each file found in reading mode for free, and then you can buy a license directly here on the company's website with subsequent storage of the data in the right place at any convenient time.

DiskInternals Partition Recovery also offers a free option to create a disk image; you can save your system configuration (along with all data) on another device and, if you wish, apply it on your new computer. After that, you can reset Windows to factory settings with a clear conscience.