The erase can be verified and the computer can be shutdown after the wiping completes. There are 6 erasing methods zero fill, random fill (default), GOST R 50739-95 (2 pass), DOD 5220.22-M (3 pass), Schneier (7 pass) and the fully paranoid Gutmann 35 pass method. To select a volume click the Wipe drive button on the left and select the drive or partition to sanitize. The program has also gained advertising in its main window in the latest release which isn’t too distracting thankfully. Since we last looked at Hardwipe it has gained the welcome addition of an official portable version although the small trade off is you don’t get the right click Explorer context menu options found in the installer version which allows you to wipe selected files, drives or free space at the click of the button. Hardwipe has quite a few useful features and in addition to erasing drives or partitions completely, it can also securely erase files, folders and the drive’s remaining free space. Disk Wipe also works on floppy disks and USB pen sticks and is compatible with Windows 95 and above. Simply select whether you want to blank the drive with zero’s or random data and enter the number of passes in the box, then click the button to erase. The program is a tiny portable executable of around 50K and can overwrite partitions or physical discs selectable from the drop down menu. Roadkil has many little useful tools and Disk Wipe is just about as easy and simple to operate as they come.

Windows 7 disk wipe utility