How to Wipe WD or Seagate External Hard Drive on Windows 11?

Quick Navigation:

• Reasons for wiping the WD/Seagate external hard drives on Windows 11
• Things to do before wiping your WD or Seagate external hard drive
• How to format a WD/Seagate external hard drive on Windows 11?
• How to permanently erase data from WD/Seagate external hard drive on Windows 11?

Seagate and WD are two of the most famous external hard drive brands. You can use them to back up your Windows 11 PC or use them to store your videos, documents and images, etc. Before you sell, donate or lend your WD/Seagate external disk to other people, you’d better to permanently wipe out your sensitive data to prevent potential data recovery.

Reasons for wiping the WD/Seagate external hard drives on Windows 11

Before we get into the specifics of the procedures, let's take a moment to consider why it is necessary to wipe your hard drives.

The most apparent purpose for wiping a hard drive is to remove all of your personal documents and apps from the disk, making it impossible for them to be retrieved by data recovery software - whether the drive has been factory reset or hasn't been. For example, before you sell your WD/Seagate external hard drive, you should wipe all your data.

Another motive for cleaning the disk may be to obtain extra storage space for your new data. And in some cases, you can fix logical errors by wipe off your disk.

Things to do before wiping your WD or Seagate external hard drive

There are a handful of things that you must take care of before wiping WD and Seagate external hard drives on your Windows 11 PC. Make certain that you have copied all of the data of the disk to a different place in order to avoid data loss.

If you're wiping the disk on a Windows 11 laptop, we recommend that you connect the laptop to a power source because certain techniques may take a very long time to finish. Close any apps or files that might be operating on the hard drive that you're attempting to erase before continuing.

How to format a WD/Seagate external hard drive on Windows 11?

It is possible to format a hard disk in a variety of methods, depending on the level of authority you have over your computer.

Using the right-click context menu

This is without a doubt one of the most straightforward and efficient methods of wiping a hard disk. The procedure takes only a few seconds and is ideal for when you need to free up space on your hard disk in order to accommodate additional files. The following are the steps.

Step 1. Open "File Explorer" . Select 'This PC' from the drop-down menu.

You should now be able to view all of the drives that are attached to your computer. There are three drives on our system, and we'll be focusing on the 'Data' disk for the sake of this article.

Step 2. All you have to do is right-click on the drive that you really want to wipe and select 'Format' from the context menu.

Upon clicking on the 'Format' button, a tiny popup window with a slew of options should appear. The 'Start' button should be used if you only want to do a rapid data wipe and don't want to fiddle with the other choices beforehand.

Step 3. Uncheck the 'Quick Format' option and then click on 'Start' to perform a more secure data wipe. Always remember that a complete wipe will take far longer than a fast format.

Once the wipe has been completed, you should receive a notification indicating that it has been completed. To dismiss the notice, use the 'OK' button.

Your hard disk has now been completely cleaned and is prepared to be used again.

Please note that the formatted data still can be recovered by data recovery software even you use high-level format method to format your WD/Seagate external hard drive.

Guide: how to recover lost data from formatted external hard drive >>

How to permanently erase data from WD/Seagate external hard drive on Windows 11?

If you don’t want your data to be recovered by other people, you can try data erasure software - such as DoYourData Super Eraser. This software offers certified data erasure standards including HMG Infosec Standard 5 (1 pass), Peter Gutmann's algorithm 2 (2 passes), U.S. Army AR380-19 (3 passes), DoD 5220.22-M ECE (7 passes), Peter Gutmann's algorithm 35 (35 passes).

Once your data is erased by DoYourData Super Eraser, the data is lost forever, can’t be recovered by any data recovery method. This software is fully compatible with Windows 11. Yo can run this software to help you permanently erase data from your WD/Seagate external hard drive on your Windows 11 PC.

DoYourData Super Eraser offers three flexible data erasure modes:

Mode 1. Selectively shred your files.

This mode can help you permanently delete files and folders. Just select files/folders from your WD or Seagate external hard drive to the erasure list, then click on Erase Now button to permanently erase them.

Mode 2. Wipe entire WD/Seagate external hard drive.

This mode will wipe and format your WD/Seagate external hard drive. All data on your external hard drive will be permanently erased.

Mode 3. Wipe already deleted data.

This mode will not erase the existing data. It will wipe free disk space of the WD/Seagate external hard drive to permanently erase all deleted/lost data.

DoYourData Super Eraser also can help you format WD/Seagate external hard drive on Windows 11 and fix crashed WD/Seagate external hard drive. If your WD or Seagate external hard drive is now showing up on your Windows 11 PC, check this guide: fix unrecognized external hard drive on Windows >>