How to Completely Wipe a USB Drive? 3 Ways

  author
Rollins Duke   
Published: December 12th, 2024 • 7 Min Read

This article will explain how to completely wipe a USB drive safely step-by-step. Whether you are throwing, selling, donating, or handing over your USB flash drive to someone, completely formatting the data available within it is crucial to maintain security. On this page, we will provide simple and effective ways to completely erase USB drive without facing any difficulty.

A USB drive is a small, high-capacity mobile storage device that connects to a computer over the USB interface. It is lightweight, portable, and simple to use and carry. However, for various reasons, we are required to completely wipe a flash drive such as selling an old drive, donating it, or simply wanting to start fresh.

There are multiple manual and direct methods available to completely wipe a USB drive. We have thoroughly explained the methods below in the article while ensuring your sensitive data is irretrievable. But before that, let us consider why users are required to execute this work.

Why Is It Important to Completely Erase USB Drive?

For several reasons, it becomes necessary or important to completely wipe a USB drive:

  • Increase the amount of space available for storing fresh data. When you completely format USB drive, all the data on the device is erased, and you can utilize all the vacant space on the device.
  • The material on the drive is very sensitive and must be deleted permanently.
  • Before you sell a USB flash drive, make sure to completely wipe it to maintain privacy.
  • Formatting a USB flash drive is crucial to preventing your private information from falling into the hands of hackers.
  • With the increasing cyber threat, data is likely to be misused. However, if you do not want to face these problems it is important to completely wipe a USB drive.
  • Unknown viruses or malware on a USB flash drive should be removed.
  • Change the file system format, for example, from FAT32 to NTFS, or from NTFS to exFAT or Ext4 format.

How to Completely Wipe a USB Drive on Mac and Windows?

As we said, you can try multiple manual and direct methods to completely erase USB drive. Simply follow the step-by-step guide explained below and use the method that seems suitable to you:

Method 1: Use the In-built Format Tool to Completely Wipe Flash Drive

In Windows computers, there is an in-built feature available to completely clear a USB. See how you can use this tool:

  1. Plug your USB drive into your computer.
  2. Open the Windows File Explorer and locate the USB drive.
  3. Right-click on the drive and choose the option to format it.
  4. Choose the desired capacity and file system.
  5. Tick the box for “Quick Format” and click on the Start button to completely wipe a flash drive.

Method 2: How to Completely Wipe a USB Drive Using CMD?

In case, you don’t find the Windows in-built format tool suitable to you or are unable to completely erase USB drive, then try the DiskPart Command method using the following steps:

  1. To begin, insert the USB flash drive into your computer.
  2. Press the Windows key + R together to open the Run dialog.
  3. In the search box, type CMD and then click Ok to completely wipe flash drive.
  4. Now, type these commands one by one and hit Enter after each line:
    • diskpart
    • list disk
    • select disk (Make sure to use the number of your USB drive)
    • clean or clean all
  5. Press the enter key for each of the commands separately.
  6. Finally, your USB drive data has been successfully erased.
  7. Now, give it a moment until the wiping/erasing is finished. Once you see the message saying “DiskPart succeeded in cleaning the disk,” type exit. Then, double-check to completely wipe a USB drive.

Issues Related to Manual Methods:

  • Both ways need lots of steps which consumes time, especially if you have many USB drives to clean.
  • Using the format tool and CMD might be tricky for some people, which could lead to mistakes or not completely format USB drive.
  • Even if you try to delete everything, there’s still a chance that someone could get back your info using special software.
  • Even if you do everything right, there’s no sure if you have completely wipe a flash drive.

Method 3: Pro Way to Completely Format USB Flash Drive Easily

We can see there are multiple methods available to completely wipe a USB driv. However, you must select one that is safe and easy to use. We would recommend you to use BitRecover BitWipe Wizard to completely wipe a USB drive on both Mac and Windows OS. It is one of the most popular file-erasing software. It is a do-it-yourself application that effectively deletes current and erased data (deleted or formatted), including internet searches, history, system, and application traces. We assure you that this application will completely clear a USB with a few simple and quick steps. So, just download the software to completely erase USB drive.

How to Completely Wipe a USB Drive with Advanced Tool?

  1. Pick “files and folders” if you want to access specific files and folders; otherwise, select “Logical Drives.how to completely wipe a USB drive
  2. Following that, Select Wipe Options and and choose “Free Space” if you only want to eliminate free space on the drive, or “Total Space” if you want to completely erase USB drive.free space
  3. Now, by clicking on the “Drives” option, pick the drives from which you wish to delete data. And then click the Next button to completely format USB drive.choose drive
  4. Now that the tool window with chosen data has shown, choose the folders and files you desire to delete and click next to completely wipe a USB drive.select folders
  5. Select “Filter Options” to delete certain files and apply the filter.use filters
  6. And now, from the drop-down menu, select the wipe technique that meets your requirements.choose wipe method
  7. Press the erase button; a warning notice will display; click the yes symbol one more.continue

That’s it. This is how to completely wipe a USB drive using the advanced tool.

Can We Recover Data After Completely Erasing USB Flash Drive?

If you’re looking to just repair USB drive issues or corruption, formatting may be helpful. However, if you want to completely wipe a USB drive before sending it to another person, selling it, or disposing of it, formatting is not the only way to go.

Only the data on the USB drive is made unusable by formatting it, however, there are a variety of data recovery program available that can restore data from a formatted USB drive. A bad individual can use such software to access your data, putting you in danger of being arrested or otherwise penalized. If you want to get back data from your own formatted USB flash drive then you can use the BitRecover USB Flash Drive Recovery tool.

Thus, deleting data or formatting the storage drive is not the safest way to permanently and completely wipe flash drive data that can’t be recovered.

Let’s Come to the Conclusion

In this post, we’ve discussed how to completely wipe a USB drive. We have provided the greatest and easiest-to-use do-it-yourself program, which allows you to complete this work quickly and effortlessly. The recommended program enables users to completely erase USB drive on Windows without encountering any difficulties. The user interface of this application is extremely user-friendly. This task is readily accomplished by both technically savvy and non-technically savvy users.