My Question

[Banana Bread]

Can You Re-use a HDD? Like I'm Going to Wipe it But I also Don't Know How to Do that. Any Suggestions?

[ki8aras]

10 minutes ago, Banana Bread said:

Can You Re-use a HDD? Like I'm Going to Wipe it But I also Don't Know How to Do that. Any Suggestions?

you mean in a different system?

absolutely yes, just format it

but if you are giving it to someone be sure to properly erase all the data on it(do some research)

[Boomwebsearch]

7 minutes ago, Banana Bread said:

Can You Re-use a HDD? Like I'm Going to Wipe it But I also Don't Know How to Do that. Any Suggestions?

 

Format the drive for reuse, if you are reselling then you may need software to secure erase which puts more wear on the drive, don't use wipe unless you are changing ownership of the drive or something along those lines. 

 

Use a software utility such as this one:    https://www.diskwipe.org/

[SpookyCitrus]

Yes you can reuse hard drives. There are a lot of ways to "wipe" them. Typically most just format it using one of theses methods if they are reusing it themselves. The drive needs to be hooked up to a working computer without being the OS drive. On Windows you can use Disk Management to format the drive, or go into CMD and use diskpart to remove all of the partitions. If you only have the one drive and are going to use it for the OS and don't need any of the information you can delete the partitions and everything in the Windows installer when at the step to select the drive you want to install Windows on. The best way to fully wipe the drive especially if you are giving the drive to someone else or selling it, is to use a program that will wipe it as well as perform a zero fill, so others can't recover your data. If you are just going to use the drive yourself it's unnecessary. If you need help just google "how to format a HDD" or look it up on YouTube there are thousands of videos.