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Which Utility to "Erase" or Wipe external HD
I am returning a Seagate portable back up drive that I'm disappointed in.
Unfortunately, instead of reading first on how to TRULY get rid of the one folder on it in such a way that it can't be retrieved, I simply deleted it and reformatted the drive. But that's not enough, I learned.
So I now have the Eraser from Portable Apps. But it tells me that (and the drive now has nothing on it, to the naked eye, maybe that's the problem?) it "failed to determine cluster size, and failed to create temporary file in that drive. So, it didn't do anything.
Is there a utility that will wipe this drive at this point? I tried DiskWipe, but it is extremely time consuming. It took about 8 hours just to reformat, and then I moved my laptop by a tiny smidgen and the reformatting was aborted because now the file was lost. It was at that point 82% done. After 8 hours. (in their user guide they talk about the "Fast format option" but they must have updated the app because there is no choice about the formatting speed.)
Any suggestions? I also downloaded the Eraser from Heidi Software but it doesn't come as a portable and I am nervous that it's the kind of app that might have a mind of its own. Anyone used this on an external drive? (I think this one is a shredder whereas the other things mentioned are wipers. Not sure if this matters.)
Has anyone used SafeWiper?