Right-click your external hard drive. This displays a pop-up menu next to the hard drive. If your external hard drive has a specific name, it will be listed in File Explorer. Otherwise, it may be listed as 'USB Drive' or the make and model of your hard drive. Because the computer may be using the external storage, remove the external drive logically before you remove it physically. 1 Open the Computer window on your PC. Double-click the Computer icon on the desktop, or open the Start menu and choose Computer. To erase the hard drive that's running an operating system, you're required to boot to the program, whereas deleting another internal or external drive can be done with the Windows version. Data Sanitization Methods: DoD 5220.22-M, Gutmann, RMCP DSX, Schneier, VSITR. Select the hard drive you want to erase (again, double-check you have the correct drive) Click Wipe to securely erase the drive Once your external hard drive has been successfully wiped clean, it will still be usable so you can donate, recycle, or sell it without the worrying about someone else accessing your old data.
Most of us are familiar with external hard drives. They are storage devices that can store a large amount of data based on their storage capacities. External hard drives are normally used for backup purposes. But do you know that these external hard drives also have a Recycle Bin just like our computers Recycle bin or Mac trash?
Yes, external hard drives do have a Recycle bin. It is not generally seen as it is hidden by default. Here is an article giving you a complete tutorial about how to access Recycle bin on external hard drive to delete and restore files quickly.
How to access Recycle Bin Folder on External Hard Disk?
Follow the instructions below after connecting your external hard drive to view the Recycle bin files on it.
![Delete programs from hard drive Delete programs from hard drive](https://www.cleverfiles.com/howto/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Deleted-Folders-in-Windows-Restore-From-Restore-Point.png)
- Go to Start and select Control Panel.
- Then select File Explorer Options.
- In the View tab, click on Show hidden files, folders, and drives.
- Now, uncheck against Hide protected operating system files and click OK to access the Recycle bin on the external hard drive.
How To Delete Recycle Bin Files On The External Hard Drive?
If you are looking to delete Recycle bin files on the external hard drive. First, perform the above method to access the Recycle bin files and folders. And then you can delete them if you wish.
Note: Don’t forget to connect your external hard drive to your computer for accessing and deleting files from it.
In some cases, you might not able to delete the Recycle bin files due to unexpected errors like Error Ox80070091. At such times you can take a backup of all your important files from the external hard drive and then format the drive.
![Delete External Hard Drive Delete External Hard Drive](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/BFoa3CfAAe4/maxresdefault.jpg)
In case if you have accidentally deleted some important files while deleting the Recycle bin files or formatting the external hard drive. Then do not panic as your deleted files are recoverable.
Utilize the Remo Recover software that is specially designed to recover deleted files from the external hard drive. This tool easily recovers files and folders emptied from the Recycle bin, formatted and corrupted internal and external drives such as external hard drive, pen drive, SSD, memory card, etc.
Steps to Recover Files from External Hard drive
Download and Install Remo Recover software > From the main screen, click Recover Partition and then select the external hard drive on which deleted files > Now click Scan option and after the file recovering process ends, you will see all the deleted files on the screen > Now click Save option to restore the files formatted from the external hard disk on a location of your choice.
About Remo Recover software in Just 3 Points:
- This tool is compatible with all the latest versions of Windows including Windows 10, 7, XP, and many more.
- This data recovery software can recover more than 300 file formats like videos, photos, raw-images, text and pdf files, audio, etc.
- It has a preview option that allows you to view the recover videos and photos for free before saving them.
Steps to Recover Files from External Hard drive
Download and Install Remo Recover software > From the main screen, click Recover Partition and then select the external hard drive on which deleted files > Now click Scan option and after the file recovering process ends, you will see all the deleted files on the screen > Now click Save option to restore the files formatted from the external hard disk on a location of your choice.
About Remo Recover software in Just 3 Points:
- This tool is compatible with all the latest versions of Windows including Windows 10, 7, XP, and many more.
- This data recovery software can recover more than 300 file formats like videos, photos, raw-images, text and pdf files, audio, etc.
- It has a preview option that allows you to view the recover videos and photos for free before saving them.
External Hard Drive Recovery
It must be troublesome that you cannot delete files from the external hard drive in Windows 10, especially at the time you need to release disk space. When you are stuck with this annoying situation, you can firstly attempt to restart your computer and scan your system for malware. If the issue persists, then you can follow this article which sums up common fixes for the problem unable to delete files from the external hard drive.
1. Obtain the Permission of the Unwanted File
Delete Programs From Hard Drive
You can apply this workaround if you cannot delete files from your external hard drive because you don't have the administrator permission to delete the file.
Step 1: Open your external hard drive and right-click the unwanted file to choose Properties option.
Step 2: Switch to Security tab and click Edit option. Windows home and student.
Step 3: Click Add button in the shown window.
Step 4: Input Authenticated Users in the blank white section and hit OK button.
Step 5: Select the added Authenticated Users, check Full control box under Allow and also click OK button to save your setting.
Now, you can try to delete the unneeded files from your external drive.
2. Remove Write Protection from the External Drive
Adobe creative cloud adalah. The disappeared Deletion option is one of the reasons for 'unable to delete files from the external hard drive', which can be caused by the write protection function. If this is your case, you can adopt this fix to remove the write protection from your external drive and then see whether the issue is solved.
Delete Hard Drive Partitions
Adobe all versions. Step 1: Run Command Prompt as an administrator.
Step 2: Type diskpart and hit Enter to run the command.
Step 3: Execute the following commands:
Delete External Hard Drive
- list disk
- select disk 1(you need to replace '1' here with the disk number of your external hard drive)
- attributes disk clear readonly
3. Check the External Hard Drive for Errors
If you receive the message 'The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable' when you are deleting files from the external drive, it might indicate that the file system of the drive is corrupted. To get rid of the error, you can use Windows built-in Check Disk utility for help.
Step 1: In File Explorer, right-click the external hard drive and select Properties option.
Step 2: Click Tools option on the top menu. Then hit Check button to error checking the external hard drive.
4. Delete Undeletable Files with File Deletion Genius
How To Add External Hard Drive
Still unable to delete files from your external hard drive after trying the fore methods? No worry, it's available to delete the undeletable files of your external drive via iSunshare File Deletion Genius that can not only remove stubborn files from your internal/external drive efficiently in Windows but also make the deleted files unrecoverable. Just try this amazing utility within 4 steps now.
Step 1: Run File Deletion Genius on your Windows 10 computer.
Step 2: Directly drag and drop the unwanted file to the tool or you can click Add button to input the unnecessary file.
Step 3: Select the file deletion mode and slow mode is more preferred here as it can erase the useless file more completely.
Step 4: Hit Delete button in the lower right corner and click OK option to forever delete the selected files from your external hard drive.
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