Hardwipe is a free tool with which we can permanently delete confidential data stored on the hard drive (without being able to recover it). It is no secret that various types of files deleted by the user by moving them to the system trash can do not give them permanent deletion. In this case, only the information about their location on the disk is lost, and the information is still stored on the medium itself, and to recover it, it is enough to use one of the many publicly available data recovery tools.

For this purpose, the user does not even need to have specialist knowledge. The Hardwipe tool is a solution for those who want to permanently destroy the data stored on the computer. It allows not only to delete individual files and folders, but also the entire contents of hard disks, pendrives, memory cards, etc., as well.

Depending on the selected method, the program deletes the selected files and then overwrites several times with random data of the disk space occupied by them. Among the modes offered by Hardwipe for safe and permanent deletion of data by overwriting, we can find, among others, those that do not differ much from the standard deletion of files, but are fast and more complex, which can last several hours depending on the amount and size of data. In the latter case, it is useful to turn off the computer automatically after work is finished.

The tool integrates with Windows Explorer and is available from the context menu. Simply select the file to be deleted, select the appropriate option and the main window of the program will be automatically opened, in which you can select its modes of operation and click the 'Start Wipe' button, which starts the deletion process. Hardwipe also offers an interesting 'Clean Space' function to clean up free disk space without deleting the data stored on the storage medium.