Whether recycling through local channels or selling a drive or PC, you’ll need to ensure it’s wiped to protect yourself from someone else accessing personal data. A quick format won’t cut it here. We need to perform some heavy cleaning to ensure no data can be recovered without going to great lengths. But your passwords, photos, and browser history aren’t generally worth the effort. For the most paranoid, the best way to protect your data on an old drive is to keep it and repurpose it for something else, but this includes purchasing a replacement. Let’s take a look at some of the best ways to safely wipe a drive.