Western Digital provides softwares that can erase(Low Level Format) all the data on a hard drive. Writing zeros to a hard drive is recommended any time an operating system is to be reinstalled on a boot drive or whenever a blank drive is desired.
1. Erasing WD Internal Hard Drives and Solid State Drives
Internal hard drives and Solid State drives can be erased by these softwares bellow. All these methods require access to your PC (To low level format your drive on a Mac you will need to contact Apple for assistance).
Softwares for Erasing your WD hard drive:
- Data Lifeguard Diagnostics for Windows
- Data Lifeguard Diagnostics for DOS (using a floppy disk or burnable CD)
- Acronis WD Edition
2. Erasing WD External Hard Drives
Western Digital external hard drives only support writing zeros to the drive using the Data Lifeguard Diagnostics utility. In addition, if your drive includes the WD SmartWare software, you have a second option which does not write zeros to the drive, but does fully erase the drive.
Softwares for Erasing your WD hard drive:
- Data Lifeguard Diagnostics for Windows
- Using WD SmartWare (Not a true low level format)
Important: If your drive includes a Western Digital Virtual CD-Rom (VCD) drive, this partition will not be removed by performing a low-level format on the hard drive.