Disk - Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command

Benteke · Jan 21, 2016

Brink said:
Hello Benteke,

Yep, you could boot to a command prompt at boot, then run the "clean" command to wipe the system disk.

Yeah, thanks Brink.... That's the part I was a little unsure about. I appreciate the confirmation

Brink · Jan 21, 2016

You're most welcome.

Rhothgar · Sep 18, 2016

Ruined hard drive?

I was getting increasingly frustrated with problems of crashing following a fresh install of Windows 7.

Subsequently I've done a lot of reading and used DISKPART to perform format of a hard drive.

When I did a clean all. It was taking so long I hit Ctrl C but nothing seemed to happen. In the end I forced a shutdown and the hard drive no longer appears.

Is there a way to recover it?

Brink · Sep 18, 2016

Hello Rhothgar,

Yeah, it's not a good idea to interrupt a clean all command like that.

Do you see the drive listed in Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc)?

Rhothgar · Sep 19, 2016

Brink said:
Hello Rhothgar,

Yeah, it's not a good idea to interrupt a clean all command like that.

Do you see the drive listed in Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc)?

Resolved thankfully by using another drive as master and accessing disk management. It must have reset it somewhere.

Brink · Sep 19, 2016

Great news. :party:

kelod467 · Jul 7, 2017

i had windows 10 64 bit build i dont know. suddenly it didnt work so i installed linux mint. great software. now i wanted to use windows 10 and linux mint as dualboot. i thought about new install starting with windows 10 but grub 2 analraped my mbr. i had to low level format somehow my ssd. this solution rescued me:

starting windows 10 on pendrive, repair, command prompt interface, diskpart, list disk, select disc, clean.

clean all is not neccessary. damn nice tool is this diskpart.

Brink · Jul 7, 2017

Hello kelod467, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Yes, it sure is.

Priscill · Jul 10, 2017

Thanks a lot, a video will be better because i am not skillful about computer

Gerry5039 · Jul 17, 2017

I am very lucky on my Laptop I have Disk Sanitizer, it does the job for me, I just press f10 and there it is under Security. Makes life a little easier

zerodealt · Aug 17, 2017

hello ,I cleaned 5oogb with diskpart hdd just for fun. is it means now what 500 gb hdd equals 0gb ?or is it still possible to reuse it ? is it possible to format it?thanks

Brink · Aug 17, 2017

Hello zerodealt, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Yes, you will be able to use the space. After you clean a disk, it will be seen as "unallocated" until you do step 12 to create a new simple volume on it.

RoWin7 · Sep 22, 2017

First time I've done it this way, and I love "clean all." I made one partition on my exterior HD called ECopy. If I clone (not image) 2 partitions, C and D from my working HD onto that HD, will it make 2 partitions, or do I have to divide it into 2 partitions first?

I think previously I use Easeus Partition Master to wipe drives, then make partitions. What are the advantages of your method?

ICIT2LOL · Sep 22, 2017

Yes mate cloning will do just that make an exact copy of what you have.

Now clean all is good for when you are disposing of a drive but the straight clean is just fine if you are only intending to reinstall it just takes a lot less time. Plus wipe is the same as the clean process and for example if you do that with say Partition Wizard you can choose the length of time it will take by choosing what you want to fill the drive with 0's and 1's ro all 0"s or 1"s etc and the more of a form you use say you choose a random 0 and 1 wipe the it will atke longer than a plain all 0's

But all the same a clean or wipe is better than just a format because it is ore thorough.

By he by you can clone to the unallocated drive after a clean I never format it unless there are specific instructions to because the clone - clones as is and it is already formatted on the drive you are cloning. You may find sometimes doing it that way may leaves some space unallocated but it is easily fixed suing again for example Partition Wizard.

soewhaty · Sep 22, 2017

I beg to differ! I simply don't get why Brink and quite a few of the admins around here constantly say that there's almost no difference btwn clean and clean all and it's a matter of a personal choice which one to go with. It is a lot more than that. It's a matter of whether or not you want old and possibly malicious data on your pc to be overwritten. If you don't overwrite it then it's still just there. Regardless of how it's marked - unallocated or not. Bare Food Kid explains that very, very, very clearly. So the way I see it there is an ENORMOUS difference btwn clean and clean all. Only clean all will get you rid of a potential infection that you had in a previously installed Windows.

I think I covered this whole point very clearly in my post here - SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation - Page 39 - Windows 7 Help Forums - but it still seemed to me the admins insist that clean and clean all do the same. Well, if Bare Foot Kid is to be trusted, then those 2 commands are clearly rather different. I referred to his post where he explains this very clearly.

All due respect to all admins here. I'm very thankful for all your work. I just want to keep it straight. If I've misunderstood something then I apologize, but I did go through this matter over and over and over again and I don't see why we should overlook the advantage that clean all provides over just clean.

ICIT2LOL · Sep 22, 2017

soewhaty said:
I beg to differ! I simply don't get why Brink and quite a few of the admins around here constantly say that there's almost no difference btwn clean and clean all and it's a matter of a personal choice which one to go with. It is a lot more than that. It's a matter of whether or not you want old and possibly malicious data on your pc to be overwritten. If you don't overwrite it then it's still just there. Regardless of how it's marked - unallocated or not. Bare Food Kid explains that very, very, very clearly. So the way I see it there is an ENORMOUS difference btwn clean and clean all. Only clean all will get you rid of a potential infection that you had in a previously installed Windows.

I think I covered this whole point very clearly in my post here - SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation - Page 39 - Windows 7 Help Forums - but it still seemed to me the admins insist that clean and clean all do the same. Well, if Bare Foot Kid is to be trusted, then those 2 commands are clearly rather different. I referred to his post where he explains this very clearly.

All due respect to all admins here. I'm very thankful for all your work. I just want to keep it straight. If I've misunderstood something then I apologize, but I did go through this matter over and over and over again and I don't see why we should overlook the advantage that clean all provides over just clean.

Well for what it is worth my friend my interpretation is that a clean is better than a straight format because that is done on a drive even if it has been cleaned or is brand new and a plain clean unless I have it terribly wrong writes zeros to the drive and any zero that replaces a zero is simply just that whether it formed part of a file or not and is not going to interfere with the new installation simply because as I just stated a zero is a zero no matter what method is used or where it is on the drive.
Now doing a straight clean is good enough for me and in my mind for anyone else if you are going to sue that drive for yourself and if you are disposing of the drive then yes a clean all is the only thing to do.

I am not crticising you for what you believe in nor do I want to influence what you feel is correct you must do what you think best.
Maybe think of it as a chalk board that is just rubbed with a dry cloth (format drive) that leaves a slight film on the board and one that is wiped with a wet cloth (cleaned drive) - only very tiny traces of chalk remain on the board - now the board would be cleaner than the dry cloth clean and taken to the next level if the board was cleaned all traces of paint removed and then repainted (clean all drive) - the board is now resurfaced then it would be as new.

soewhaty · Sep 22, 2017

Hi again! Thanks for your reply!

Good to have a discussion on this! Let's leave formatting out of the discussion. I didn't even mention it. So the idea is to compare the 'clean' and the 'clean all' commands. Now, I was, and still am, under the very strong impression that the 'clean' command does NOT write zeros (secure erase) to the whole drive. Only the 'clean all' command does that. Here - Disk - Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command - Windows 7 Help Forums Brink explains that himself very clearly:

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.

I simply don't get it. Brink himself says it in this thread of his and then he himself told me several times that it is simply a matter of personal choice whether to go with clean or clean all. Well, as Brink explains in the quote above - it is simply NOT a matter of personal choice. The clean command will not do a secure erase. Only the clean all command will do that. Thus, even if you reinstall Windows, if you do not run a secure erase (clean all) then you have absolutely no guarantee that old malicious data isn't still sitting on your drive. At this point you only have to hope and rely that Windows writes over this data. Knowing modern malware I do consider it extremely easy to have an infection that simply tells Windows not to write over it, thus windows never writes 0's over the infected data.

Bottom line from Brinks words - 'clean all' is the only command that does secure erase. The clean command does not do that.

Brink · Sep 22, 2017

soewhaty said:
I beg to differ! I simply don't get why Brink and quite a few of the admins around here constantly say that there's almost no difference btwn clean and clean all and it's a matter of a personal choice which one to go with. It is a lot more than that. It's a matter of whether or not you want old and possibly malicious data on your pc to be overwritten. If you don't overwrite it then it's still just there. Regardless of how it's marked - unallocated or not. Bare Food Kid explains that very, very, very clearly. So the way I see it there is an ENORMOUS difference btwn clean and clean all. Only clean all will get you rid of a potential infection that you had in a previously installed Windows.

I think I covered this whole point very clearly in my post here - SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation - Page 39 - Windows 7 Help Forums - but it still seemed to me the admins insist that clean and clean all do the same. Well, if Bare Foot Kid is to be trusted, then those 2 commands are clearly rather different. I referred to his post where he explains this very clearly.

All due respect to all admins here. I'm very thankful for all your work. I just want to keep it straight. If I've misunderstood something then I apologize, but I did go through this matter over and over and over again and I don't see why we should overlook the advantage that clean all provides over just clean.

soewhaty said:
Hi again! Thanks for your reply! Good to have a discussion on this! Let's leave formatting out of the discussion. I didn't even mention it. So the idea is to compare the 'clean' and the 'clean all' commands. Now, I was, and still am, under the very strong impression that the 'clean' command does NOT write zeros (secure erase) to the whole drive. Only the 'clean all' command does that. Here - Disk - Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command - Windows 7 Help Forums Brink explains that himself very clearly:

I simply don't get it. Brink himself says it in this thread of his and then he himself told me several times that it is simply a matter of personal choice whether to go with clean or clean all. Well, as Brink explains in the quote above - it is simply NOT a matter of personal choice. The clean command will not do a secure erase. Only the clean all command will do that. Thus, even if you reinstall Windows, if you do not run a secure erase (clean all) then you have absolutely no guarantee that old malicious data isn't still sitting on your drive. At this point you only have to hope and rely that Windows writes over this data. Knowing modern malware I do consider it extremely easy to have an infection that simply tells Windows not to write over it, thus windows never writes 0's over the infected data.

Bottom line from Brinks words - 'clean all' is the only command that does secure erase. The clean command does not do that.

Hello,

First, it's always your own personal choice of what you want to do.

Second, of course there's a difference between formatting and "clean" and "clean all" that you have quoted from the tutorial. I never said there wasn't. It's just a matter of what you feel you need to use or required in your situation.

soewhaty · Sep 22, 2017

Yes, you are right. I'm just discussing all this because several comments from admins/support staff have been circulating around here for a while, suggesting that there's either no difference btwn clean and clean all or even mistaking the commands one for another. Those 2 commands do 2 very different things. And if u want to rid yourself of traces of infected data (even leftovers from previous OS installs) then 'clean all' is the only way as you've explained it yourself. This is because 'clean all' is the command which does secure erase to the whole drive (both free space and written data), and not the 'clean' command.

I cannot agree with both your and Layback Bear's comment here SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation - Page 39 - Windows 7 Help Forums. You said 'If you're keeping the computer, then there's really no need unless you just want to do a "clean" instead to wipe the drive to unallocated'. Yes, but not quite. The need for 'clean all' clearly arises in case u have any traces of infected data (even leftovers from previous OS installs), which u want overwritten. Nothing else will save you. If u rely on not doing a secure erase and simply hoping that Windows will write over this infected data, then there's no guarantee that malware won't be telling windows never to write over it, thus leaving it stay. Moreover, Layback Bear then goes on to say 'I always use Clean or a 3rd party program to Clean the drive if the old install had any kind of infection' - again that is simply not true according to your tutorial where you clearly explain that only Clean All does secure erase, and not Clean.

Several posts above (Disk - Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command - Page 30 - Windows 7 Help Forums), ICIT2LOL says that 'a plain clean unless I have it terribly wrong writes zeros to the drive' - again not true because clean command does not do secure erase (writing 0s or 1s). Only clean all does that.

There is such a big difference btwn clean and clean all. It can't just be overlooked.

Brink · Sep 22, 2017

The statement I made in the thread you linked to is of course depending on one's situation or wants.

If there were no issues requiring otherwise and you were keeping the computer, then a simple "clean" command or clean install should usually be fine.

"Clean all" can take a long long time to run, so I don't like to recommend it as a first option unless the situation calls for it.

Disk - Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command

Member

My Computer

Administrator

My Computer

New member

My Computer

Administrator

My Computer

New member

My Computer

Administrator

My Computer

New member

My Computer

Administrator

My Computer

Banned

My Computer

New member

My Computer

New member

My Computer

Administrator

My Computer

New member

My Computer

Confusion Therapist

My Computer

New member

My Computer

Confusion Therapist

My Computer

New member

My Computer

Administrator

My Computer

New member

My Computer

Administrator

My Computer