Disk - Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command

How to "Clean" or "Clean All" a Disk with the Diskpart Command​

   Information

This will show you how to use the clean or clean all command on a selected disk to delete all of it's MBR or GPT partitions, volumes, and any hidden sector information on MBR disks is overwritten.

The data on the HDD is not written over using the clean command like it does with the clean all command below. With the clean command, the data on the HDD is only marked as being deleted instead and is only written over when new data is written/saved to the same location on the HDD next.

OR

You could use the clean all command (secure erase) to do the above and also have each and every disk sector on the HDD written over and zeroed out completely to securely delete all data on the disk to help prevent the data from being able to be recovered. "Clean All" takes about an hour per 320 GB to finish running.

   Note

• You cannot use the clean or clean all diskpart commands on a boot disk (ex: disk Windows is installed on) unless you do it from a command prompt at boot.

• Be sure to backup anything that you do not want to lose on the disk that you use clean or clean all on first. It will be to late afterwards. All data will be permanently lost on the disk.

   Warning

You do not want to use clean all on a SSD disk often. Having every sector written over to 0 on a SSD can reduce it's life span faster.

Here's How:

1. In Windows 7, open an elevated command prompt, or a command prompt at boot.

OR

2. In Windows 8 and 8.1, open an elevated command prompt, or a command prompt at boot.

   Note

Be sure that you have the correct Disk #. You would not want to wipe clean the wrong disk.

A) Press the Windows + R keys to open the Run dialog, type compmgmt.msc, and press Enter.

B) If prompted by UAC, click/tap on Yes.

C) Click/tap on Disk Management in the left pane, and make note of the disk # in the middle pane of the disk that you want to clean or clean all. (see screenshot below)
NOTE: For example, I would use Disk 1 if I wanted to use clean or clean all on my USB key drive.

3. In the elevated command prompt, type diskpart and press Enter. (see screenshot below)

4. In the elevated command prompt, type list disk and press Enter. (see screenshot below)
NOTE: This will give you a list of disk numbers to select from.

5. In the elevated command prompt, type select disk # and press Enter. (see screenshot below)
NOTE: You would substitute # for the disk number listed that you want to use clean or clean all on. For example, I want to use one of them on Disk 1 (from step 1) for my USB key drive, so I would type select disk 1 and press Enter.

6. If the status of the selected disk # (ex: Disk 3) shows as Offline, type online disk, and press Enter to make it online. (see screenshot below)

7. Do either step 8 or 9 below for which command you would like to use.


8. To Use the Clean Diskpart Command
NOTE: (Recommended) See the green INFO box at the top of the tutorial for more information about this command. This command will wipe the HDD quickly.
A) In the elevated command prompt, type clean, press Enter, and go to step 10 below. (see screenshot below)
NOTE: This will not take long to finish. Think of it as being like a quick format.

9. To Use the Clean All Diskpart Command
NOTE: See the green INFO box at the top of the tutorial for more information about this command. This command will wipe the HDD, and perform a secure erase. "Clean All" takes about an hour per 320 GB to finish running. It's best to only use this command if you wanted to help make sure that the data on the HDD cannot be recovered say when giving or selling the HDD to another person.
A) In the elevated command prompt, type clean all, and press Enter, and go to step 10 below. You will see the command prompt below as is until the "clean all" command is finished. (see screenshot below)

NOTE: This will take quite some time (several hours or more) to finish depending on how large the disk is since it is writing over each and every sector on it to zero. Think of it as being like a full or low level format.

10. When finished, in the elevated command prompt, type exit and press Enter. Close the elevated command prompt.

11. The disk will be left as unallocated space. (see screenshot below)

12. You will now need to create a new partition or volume on the disk to be able to use it again.



That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

---

• How to Shrink a Partition or Volume in Windows 7
• How to Create a New Partition or Volume in Windows 7
• How to Extend a Partition or Volume in Windows 7
• How to Delete a Partition or Volume in Windows 7 and Windows 8
• How to Convert a FAT or FAT32 Volume to NTFS in Windows 7
• How to Convert a MBR Disk to a GPT Disk
• How to Convert a GPT Disk to a MBR Disk
• How to Convert a Basic Disk to a Dynamic Disk
• How to Convert a Dynamic Disk to a Basic Disk
• How to Quick Format a HDD or USB Drive
• How to Securely Wipe a Hard Disk with "Darik's Boot and Nuke"
• How to Overwrite Deleted Data using the "Cipher" Command in Windows

 

[Kusuri]

RAW indicates that it's not finished yet since it should say "Unallocated Space" instead.

Since you are doing this from a program, then it could take longer since it may do more write passes. Plus, it will take longer via a USB connection since it is slower than a internal SATA or external eSATA connection.

Is the drive's activity light still on or blinking?

If you look at the "Current Sector" area in the progress dialog box, is the sector count increasing on the left side to indicate that it is actually still running?

It's blinking like when it was with the interrupted clean all. And yeah the "Current Sector" is increasing.

I guess interrupting the previous clean didn't damage anything right? Because I think the command window actually had a blinking "_", I just interpreted it wrong. The HDD was already empty and all.

Just don't understand where those 118MB after formating the unallocated space came from.

 

[Brink]

Interrupting it would usually just lead to having to format, clean, or clean all the drive again before being able to use it.

I would recommend to let this one finish to make it unallocated space so that you will be able to do step 10 afterwards, and not have to start over again.

 

[o770]

It takes 14 hours to complete the clean all command on my USB external of 1TB. I just want to register that.

I will also full format the disk and later here tell how long it takes.

 

[mjf]

It takes a long time but that looks too long. Are you using USB 1 by any chance?

 

[o770]

That was the clean all as I said. Full format should be somewhat faster.
USB 2.0 - thanks for noting.

PS. Please check some earlier posts of someone waiting 11 hours. It's perfectly normal for USB externals. I wanted to register that for anyone like me afraid something is wrong...

PPS. Still before the full format, the clean all again strangely only lasted for 11 hours. Nothing was done between both (clean all) passes. Then the full format also took 11 hours.
A couple things about my earlier wrong assumption. Either Format and Diskpart, actually almost anything is under very strict bandwidth limits - all of us know it, about 20MB per second on USB 2.o; and not as much known the fact that the full format also writes zeros since Vista.
Any comment on the 3 hours difference between both clean all passes is much appreciated.

 

[Xplicit]

Hey guys, the diskpart "clean all" command used to zero everything out within 3hours of my normal WD Black 1TB. But after the last clean install which is half a year ago, the "clean all" command took more than 10hours.

I've used:
Chkdsk /f/r/v for the whole drive, sfc /scannow and even WD HD Diagnostic tools.

Chkdsk found some bad sectors and fixed it, SFC found nothing, & during a month ago, I used WD HD Diag and found some errors in my hard disk. Apparently, it showed me an error and I looked it up on the net & I found the only way to fix it was to RMA it. But I lost my receipt & not sure about it whether I can RMA it without the receipt though. ):

Is it possible to fix the drive without RMA-ing it? Is it possible that the failing hard disk would be the issue for the slow "clean all" diskpart command?

Thanks for your time.

 

[Brink]

That was the clean all as I said. Full format should be somewhat faster.
USB 2.0 - thanks for noting.

PS. Please check some earlier posts of someone waiting 11 hours. It's perfectly normal for USB externals. I wanted to register that for anyone like me afraid something is wrong...

PPS. Still before the full format, the clean all again strangely only lasted for 11 hours. Nothing was done between both (clean all) passes. Then the full format also took 11 hours.
A couple things about my earlier wrong assumption. Either Format and Diskpart, actually almost anything is under very strict bandwidth limits - all of us know it, about 20MB per second on USB 2.o; and not as much known the fact that the full format also writes zeros since Vista.
Any comment on the 3 hours difference between both clean all passes is much appreciated.

Hello 0770,

The time it takes to complete a "Clean all" command could vary depending on many different factors that each of those could also vary each time you run the command. For example, varying bandwidth, cpu usage, memory usage, drive errors (ex: bad sectors), how the drive is connected (SATA, USB 2.0, USB 1.0, eSATA) etc......


It's almost impossible to predict an exact time unitl completion due to this, but at least you have an average time now.

Hope this helps some.

 

[Brink]

Hey guys, the diskpart "clean all" command used to zero everything out within 3hours of my normal WD Black 1TB. But after the last clean install which is half a year ago, the "clean all" command took more than 10hours.

I've used:
Chkdsk /f/r/v for the whole drive, sfc /scannow and even WD HD Diagnostic tools.

Chkdsk found some bad sectors and fixed it, SFC found nothing, & during a month ago, I used WD HD Diag and found some errors in my hard disk. Apparently, it showed me an error and I looked it up on the net & I found the only way to fix it was to RMA it. But I lost my receipt & not sure about it whether I can RMA it without the receipt though. ):

Is it possible to fix the drive without RMA-ing it? Is it possible that the failing hard disk would be the issue for the slow "clean all" diskpart command?

Thanks for your time.

Hello Xplicit,

Yes, a failing HDD would slow it down quite a bit. In fact running a "Clean all" command on a failing HDD could cause the HDD to completely fail faster due to the high activity on the HDD the command uses.

As for your receipt, if you purchased the HDD from a online retailer, then you might be able to go back to that online retailer, log in, view your order history, and hopefully find and print out a copy of the order's invoice as a receipt.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[Xplicit]

Thanks for your fast reply, Shawn.
Is there any possible ways to fix the drive instead of the last resort to RMA it?

 

[Brink]

Xplicit,

Not for hardware failure. The only way to truly fix it is to replace it.

If you keep on using it, it's just going to be a gamble on when it's going to fail and take out the data on it as well.

I would strongly recommend to RMA it while it's still under warranty. Otherwise, you risk having to pay for a new one out of your own pocket when it dies.

 

[Xplicit]

Xplicit,

Not for hardware failure. The only way to truly fix it is to replace it.

If you keep on using it, it's just going to be a gamble on when it's going to fail and take out the data on it as well.

I would strongly recommend to RMA it while it's still under warranty. Otherwise, you risk having to pay for a new one out of your own pocket when it dies.

Oh, alright. Thanks for the help though! Truly appreciated it.

 

[Brink]

You're most welcome.

 

[lister]

Is this also applicable to a dual boot?

 

[Brink]

Hello Lister,

I'm not sure what you mean. The "clean" or "clean all" command will delete all partitions on the hard drive that you run it on.

 

[koala321]

Hello Magnificent 7,

I was a little too fast with executing the 'clean all' command in DISKPART.
The data being erased is not a problem but the time that it takes ...

Therefore, is it possible to gently stop this process? Is it safe to do so?

Thanks!

 

[Brink]

Hello Koala, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Unfortunately, no. Once started, you need to let it finish. If not, then you may be unable to use the HDD until you run the command on it again.

 

[mjf]

Unfortunately, no. Once started, you need to let it finish. If not, then you may be unable to use the HDD until you run the command on it again.

Brink,
I thought the clean all was just progressively writing zeroes to the disk.
Can you explain the consequences of just doing cntrl C out of the clean all?

 

[Brink]

Hello MJF,

It's not going to hurt the HDD, but if it isn't allowed to finish, then you most likely will not be able to use the HDD until either running the commmand again or format the HDD to create a partition/volume on the HDD.

Think of it as about the same as interrupting the formatting of a HDD.

 

[mjf]

...then you most likely will not be able to use the HDD until either running the commmand again or format the HDD to create a partition/volume on the HDD.

Thanks
I thought that might be all. It's just useful for people to partly run a clean all to completely wipe the MBR at times. But as you say you need to initialize and format the disk after.

 

[koala321]

Thank you Brink!

I eventually did a ctrl+c, with no hurt.
After that I formatted the HDD and everything went fine.