USB Flash drives are one of luminous and disparate invention to store thousands of files in one convenient location. There are myriad of reasons to use USB flash drives over CD and DVDs. They are portable, fast and easy to use and carry. But after using it for few times, you might need to erase data from USB flash drive to make some more room to store new data or sell it. A simple deletion will not really erase everything from the USB flash drive securely since any advanced computer user can easily recover them in no time using any data recovery software. You will be amused to see how easy it is to get back all the deleted data in no time. So, if you have any sensitive information stored from company or client information then you must erase them using some third party software to make sure all data are securely deleted and can never be restored using any data recovery software whatsoever.
So most people choose to. In this guide, we will introduce you to two methods that helps to erase data on USB flash drive permanently. Both are free to implement and can get the job done as quickly as possible to give you the best user experience. Method #1: Wipe USB Flash Drive by Using In-built Format Option All Windows and Mac computers comes with an in-built format disk option to erase everything from a USB flash drive. We will show you how to use this feature as your advantage to make sure everything is deleted permanently.
If you installed Windows on your Mac using Boot Camp, you can format a disk or volume as a secondary volume to use with the Windows operating system. After converting the USB flash drive from MBR to GPT format, you can use the steps below to create a bootable USB installation media to install Mac OS X. Download and install a copy of TransMac, which is the software that will make everything happen.
Insert the USB flash drive to the computer and let the PC detect it. Open ' My Computer' and right-click on the flash drive disk name. Find ' Format' from the option and make a left click on it with the help of your mouse. You will be able to see a window with the following option.
It will show you the storage capacity and file system. By default, it can be either NTFS or FAT32 and the volume label just indicates the name of the flash drive. Just leave it to the default settings and click on 'Start'. Wait for few minutes until the formatting process is finished. It may take several minutes depending on the size of the USB Flash drive.
Make sure to keep it connected while the process is taking place. After you see the 'Format Successful' pop up messages, you can eject the flash drive. Warning: This should delete all the files from the flash drive. But as we mentioned earlier, a simple deletion and from the USB drive, they're still be easily recovered by some data recovery softweare.
If the files are not important then you can use this simple deletion option but if you do have confidential company and client information stored in it then you might have to use a professional external tool to erase everything permanently. Method #2: How to Completely Wipe USB Flash Drive with SafeWiper for Disk To reduce the risk that someone might recover sensitive data from your USB flash drive, you need to use eraser software to securely erase data from removable USB disk. SafeWiper for Disk is a professional data deletion tool that from a drive disk permanently. This little tool deletes data from a disk drive as it never existed on the first place.
So, if you are erasing confidential and sensitive data from your USB flash drive then it is assured that the data deletion is beyond recovery. No data recovery has succeeded to recover data from any drive after being deleted using SafeWiper. It is easy to use but to use advanced deletion techniques, you will have to pay a small fee to enjoy the full benefits of this software. Step 1 Download and Install Program, Insert Your USB Drive to PC Download SafeWiper for Disk on your computer, install and run it. SafeWiper for Disk offers to complete hard drives or logical hard drives. So you either completely remove everything from a hard disk or only the hierarchical partitions created from the hard disk.
Choose the USB flash drive disk and click on 'Next'. Step 4 Choose Wiping Algorithm Click the Setting on the proram, you will see four wiping method in the list. You can use the featured high level deletion techniques including Peter Guttmann Secure Deletion, North Atlantic Treaty OrganizationNATO standard, Guttmann Method and so on. The more advnaced wiping algorithm you choose, the more time it will take. Step 5 Start Deleting Files from Computer (Mac/Windows) After choosing the wiping method, simply click on ' Wipe' and the program will automatically start erasing everything from the USB flash drive. Wait for few minutes until the data are securely removed from the disk drive.
Now, you can audit the USB flash drive and everything will be permanently erased. Note: Realize that the data deleted using this software is permanent and there's no going back after this. So, make sure to generate a full back up before using this software.
Summary: It is recommended to use professional external software like to permanently delete everything from a USB flash drive if it contains any classified and private data to make sure nobody can steal it. Any computer genius can easily recover deleted data from your USB flash drive if you use the simple deletion technique. You must take a step further to maintain the safety and privacy of the data. Hopefully, you guys enjoyed and found this article useful.
Share on Facebook Tweet this Share Compatibility issues between Microsoft Windows and Apple MacOS may have diminished sharply over the years, but that doesn’t mean they’ve completely disappeared. Today if you go out and buy a new external hard drive, you may notice that working between the two is an often demoralizing task — but it doesn’t need to be. A quick Google search may lead you to believe you’re on the right path by formatting the drive to FAT32. Unless every file you plan to store on the disk is less than 4GB in size, you may be better off avoiding this method, instead opting for the more storage efficient, reliable, and secure NTFS and Mac OS Extended file systems. Partition the drive on Windows 10 Possibly the best solution to using a hard drive with both Windows and Mac without the use of third-party software is creating two partitions on the drive, one for Windows and one for Mac.
This essentially tricks the computer into thinking there are multiple hard drives connected to the computer at once despite there only being one. Partitioning is a fairly simple process, and we can show you how to. We’ll go into more detail below on how cross platform partitioning works, too.
Partition the drive on a Mac As far as partitioning goes, Macs have it a little bit easier. Plus, you don’t have to deal with the restrictions of FAT32, which is icing on the cake. That’s why — if you have the option — we would suggest partitioning your hard drive from the Mac itself. To do this, your first step will be to find Disk Utility. The easiest way to access Disk Utility is by searching for it in Spotlight Search in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. With Disk Utility open, locate the hard drive you want to partition and select Partition.
If you want to start from scratch, you can do so by first clicking Erase, followed by Erase Free Space to format the disk. Next, under the Partition Layout column, specify the number of partitions you want to create on the drive. In the Partition Information category, specify the name and size of each partition. Since we’re showing you how to use a hard drive with both Mac and PC, this setup is simple, with one partition dedicated to MacOS and the other dedicated to Windows.
For now at least, you’ll want to format the MacOS partition as MacOS Extended (Journaled) and the Windows partition as ExFAT. Of course, as we mentioned before, the FAT file system isn’t without its fair share of problems. Unlike the older FAT32 format, however, ExFAT allows for the storage of files up to 16 exabytes (which equates to about 16 million terabytes!). Likewise, it supports bigger volumes as well.
But it also brings with it the shaky reliability and security standards of FAT32, which is why we’ll be showing you how to format this partition back to NTFS in Windows. If you would like to specify a partition style, or scheme, select Options. However, the default option of GUID Partition Table is typically optimal with an external hard drive, so long as you don’t plan on booting the OS itself from the disk. Once you’ve decided on a layout as well as the names and sizes of your partitions, go ahead and click Apply. The next screen that pops up just wants to ensure that you’re aware of the effects that accompany disk partitioning, i.e. Erasing everything on your hard drive.
Once you’ve come to terms with this, click Partition. And you should be done — ah, but wait! If you’re worried about the reliability factor of the exFAT file system, or lack thereof, there is a way to format the Windows partition to NTFS, but it requires connecting the hard drive to a Windows computer.
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With Windows booted up, locate Disk Management by searching Windows Search / Cortana for Create and format hard disk partitions. When you’ve done that, make sure your hard drive is still connected and you should see the Windows partition, along with the letter you assigned it, under the Volume column. Right-click the Windows volume and select Format. Then, under File system, switch to NTFS and click OK. Now you can use your external hard drive with both Windows and MacOS.
But, remember, your Mac will only be able to write to the MacOS partition while your PC can only write to the NTFS-formatted Windows partition. If you need to overwrite files on the Windows partition using the Mac, for instance, you’ll have to first move the files over to the OS X volume and vice versa. Partitioning on Windows On a PC, the process is less straightforward than what you’d see on a Mac, but it’s a relatively similar process.
If you’re on Windows 10, locate Cortana on the bottom left-hand corner of the screen and search Create and format hard disk partitions. The Disk Management window will proceed to open up. If you haven’t formatted the drive already, you’ll want to do that now. To do this, you’ll want to find the disk in the lower half of Disk Management. If you don’t have any additional drives attached, aside from the one built in to your computer, it should be recognized as Disk 1. Typically, when you buy an external hard drive it will be formatted out of the box. Depending on a number of factors, however, your drive may be labeled Not Initialized, such as the 4TB drive exhibited above. If this is the case for you, right-click the drive you want to format and click Initialize Disk.
This will prompt a new window, asking you to select a partition style for your disk. If you’re going to be using the drive with a version of Windows prior to Windows Vista, you’re going to want to go with MBR. With that being said, MBR is only compatible with disks up to 2TB in capacity. Therefore, if you’re like most of us and you want to get the most out of your external hard drive, GPT is the way to go.
Click OK when you’ve made your decision. Now that you’ve initialized the drive, you should have a drive listed, labeled Unallocated.
Right-click the box where it says this and select New Simple Volume. This will thereby initiate the New Simple Volume Wizard. Click Next and you’ll be asked to specify the size of your volume.
The volume is the same as a partition. In Windows, the only partition type you can create with read/write compatibility on a Mac is exFAT. For the purpose of this article, we decided to open the Windows 10 Calculator app by searching Calculator in Cortana and divided the maximum disk space in half.
This way, we could dedicate half of the storage space to the Mac-friendly FAT32 format and the other half to the NTFS format on PC. Click Next then you’ll be asked to assign a drive letter to the new volume. We’re calling ours G by default, but you use any letter you’d like to properly identify the disk when it’s in use. After proceeding to the next page, select the file system exFat and keep the allocation unit size at the default.
As a standard user, Microsoft advises against changing the allocation unit size. Again, you can assign whatever volume label you’d like, so long as it makes it easy to identify the drive when in use. For this reason, we opted for “MacOS,” a simple reminder that this partition will be used in conjunction with my Mac. Keep the box beside Perform a quick format checked and click Next to move on to the next screen. On the next page, make sure everything is correct and select Finish. Now repeat this process for Windows.
However, this time, instead of using the file system exFat, you’ll want to go with NTFS. The end result should look something like this: And there you have it That’s how you partition a hard drive for use on both Windows and Mac. Alternatively, you can install an application like the commercial product or the open-source on your Mac to enable NTFS read/write support, but it should be noted that even with third-party software, some features including Time Machine will not work properly with an NTFS file system.