Clean the disk before installation. How to clean your computer completely? How to completely clean your hard drive. Through command execution

Did you know that after deleting a file, you can restore it using special programs? Even formatting won't help. If you need to permanently delete some files, you need to use a special program.

This article will look at Eraser HDD, a free program for destroying information on a disk without the possibility of data recovery.

Attention! This program will destroy all files on the selected hard drive.
Destroyed files cannot be restored!
Use it if you really need to completely destroy your data.

Why might data destruction be necessary?

The need to completely delete files usually arises in the following cases:

You are selling a computer, and you don’t want anyone to be able to recover your personal files that were once stored on your hard drive (photos, letters, documents, etc.).

I know that many will say to this: “this is paranoia, who needs your files? :).”

And yet, there is a possibility that the new owners of the computer will restore your files. And if such a possibility exists, then their attempts at recovery must be nullified. It’s unlikely that anyone will like it when strangers delve into their personal photographs and documents, right?

How to use Eraser HDD program

In fact, it is very simple to use; you only need to press a couple of keys.

1) Download the program and run it. It is ready to use immediately (no installation required). This “picture” will appear before you:

2) Here you only need one button, “Start”. Click on this button.
You will see a list of hard drives. The very first column displays the hard drive number; select the drive on which you want to destroy information and see what number is assigned to this drive.

3) Enter the physical disk number and click the “Apply” button.

The program will ask you to confirm the selected action.

And attention again!!! This is the last moment you can change your mind. Once you confirm the destruction of data, there is no turning back! So think carefully about whether you indicated the right disk number, or maybe you shouldn’t do this at all? Just in case, make backup copies of important files.

4) If you finally decide and confirm the deletion, wait for the following message to appear:

Now all you have to do is reboot and initialize the disk.

Download the program to completely delete files:

The problem with computer junk causes inconvenience to almost all users year after year. In this article I will tell you how to clean Local Disk C.

If your PC has become noticeably slower, it will be useful for you to clean up unnecessary files and thereby speed up your computer.

To find out how to do it yourself correctly, read the entire article or watch the video at the end of the article.

Introduction

Many people wonder about the slow operation of their computer and spend hours searching for information on the Internet. One of the main reasons is the clutter of Local Disk C. The PC starts to work slower because it is on this disk that the operating system is located, which is responsible for all the actions performed.

As a result of the operating system files becoming clogged, we begin to notice errors in work processes and slow program responses. Imagine using a real-life example: you run in sneakers or sports shoes to improve your physical fitness. Now take a sack of potatoes over each shoulder and try to run, how’s that? I think the difference will be noticeable, the same is true on the local disk, while the empty one works quickly, a lot of garbage has accumulated and it begins to work slowly.

That is why you should at least sometimes clean up your PC and delete unnecessary files.

Clean desktop and its impact on Local Disk C

Dear friends, first I want to draw your attention to the desktop of your PC, because many do not understand how to use it correctly. And its correct condition lies in its purity.

All files and folders located on the desktop are recorded on the memory of local drive C, so think ten times before throwing music albums and new movies onto it, work correctly now, transfer all data from the desktop to Local drive D or other existing ones, this is significant will make the operation of the operating system easier and free up the memory of drive C. If you need quick access to some programs or files, make shortcuts for them, this will be the right way.

Manually clearing temporary, unnecessary files from your computer

Before moving on to this stage, you need to understand a little that when running any programs on a computer, the operating system creates temporary files, even when you are just surfing the Internet, some of the data is recorded as temporary files.

This is actually done to speed up the work, how? Let's say you opened the Odnoklassniki website, the system recorded several large pictures from the site in a folder with temporary files, and the next time you go to Odnoklassniki, the computer does not download information from the site server, but takes several large pictures from the temporary files previously recorded in the folder.

Yes, this is useful, the folder with temporary files “swells” to such an extent that it begins to slow down the PC and most of the memory of Local Disk C is clogged, which sometimes also leads to errors.

To delete these temporary files, you just need to go to the desired folder with these same temporary files and delete everything from there. By the way, don’t worry, there are no system files there and you won’t delete anything you need, feel free to go in and clean it.

To do this, go to the directory:

My computer/Local drive C/Windows/Temp

We went into this folder, circled all the files and deleted them, emptied the trash.

Analysis and removal of old, unnecessary programs, games and files

This section can be divided into two stages. The first is quite simple, it involves removing old, no longer needed games and programs. To do this, simply go to the program control panel and delete those applications that you once installed yourself; when you see familiar names, you definitely won’t get confused.

1. Go to the Start menu - Control Panel - Programs and Features and see the following window in front of you:

We find programs we don’t need in this window, select them and click on the delete/change button at the top, doing this one by one with each unnecessary application or game. This process will also clear the memory of the local drive C.

The point of the action is to identify the problematic folder or file, and for us these are objects that occupy a significant amount of memory. Not quite clear? I'll explain everything now.

We go to Local Disk C and see folders in front of us, the number may be different for everyone

Now we begin to analyze each folder in turn, first check the volume of the first folder

Our goal is to find out how much memory it takes up on the computer

We looked and saw that the folder takes up only 8.13 MB, we are not interested in this size, we are only looking for huge files that weigh from several GB.

What should I do if I don’t understand anything about file sizes?

If you have difficulty understanding the size of files or do not know how to distinguish between them, then I recommend using my online textbook: How to master a computer from scratch. In it you will find answers to all your questions.

We were a little distracted, but that’s okay, let’s continue, move on to the next folder and also check its weight until you find folders whose volume scares you. Most likely, there will be two folders: Windows and Program Files.

As soon as we have identified a folder that takes up a lot of space, we go to it and also analyze everything that is in it by determining the weight. Eventually you will find files or folders that take up a huge amount of memory on your Local Drive C, copy their name and look on the Internet what these files are and what program they are from, most likely you will be surprised how much junk you will find.

Attention, if you are a complete novice user, then do not use this method, just skip it, because in the process you can remove the necessary components or programs, which will lead to disastrous circumstances.

We use the built-in capabilities of cleaning Local disks

The creators of the operating system did not forget about users and initially added to Windows basic capabilities for simplified cleaning of Local disks. This is not always effective, but knowing this method will also be useful, and it will not take much of your time.

To do this, you need to go to my computer, select the local disk to clean and right-click on it and select the properties line.

Now we will see information about the disk in front of us, we need to click on the clean disk button

You will need to wait a while until the program starts, you will see something like this:

When the program starts, you will see a window in front of you in which you need to check the boxes next to the partitions that you want to clean, here I just check all the boxes and click OK.

Automatically clean the Cache and Registry using Ccleaner

Now we can relax a little, then the automatic cleaning program will work for us. It's called CCleaner, you can read how to download it correctly and from where in the article on how to clean your computer's registry. After you have installed it, launch it. Click on the cleaning section, first select the Windows section and only after that click the analysis button.

Now we will see in front of us all the files that the program can clean without causing harm to your PC, at the top where it will say analysis completed you can see approximately how much space the program will free up for you. Click the clear button

Reviving or speeding up your computer after cleaning up the mess

After you have done such a huge job, you just need to bring your computer back to life, to do this you need to put all the files on their shelves. This will speed up your computer and save you from some errors. This process is called defragmentation. I recently devoted an entire article to this, which I recommend you read.

Now it’s time to consolidate the knowledge, watch the video in which I myself go through all the stages of cleaning Local Disk C in order. Good luck friends and don’t forget to subscribe to my site’s news, the subscription is a little lower, be literate in everything!

As you use Windows, temporary files of system programs, the contents of the Recycle Bin, old OS recovery images, and other data accumulate on the disk. You can delete them.

In Explorer, right-click on the system drive (usually drive C) and select Properties → Disk Cleanup. In the next window, mark the items that take up the most space, click OK and confirm deletion.

To erase even more temporary files, including update data and outdated restore points, click Disk Cleanup again and click Clean up system files. Mark the largest objects in the list that appears and delete them. Then go to the Advanced tab, click Clean up under System Restore and Shadow Copies and confirm deletion.

It is especially useful to perform such cleaning after updates, since a large backup copy of the previous version of Windows may remain on the computer.

Browsers and other installed programs fill the system with temporary files over time. Sometimes this data can take up a significant amount of storage space. But you can quickly get rid of such garbage using free utilities like .

There may be large files on your computer that you do not need and are just wasting disk space. Searching for them manually is a thankless task. Moreover, there are programs that analyze the disk and display a list of all folders and files on the computer, ordered by size. Use one of them to find and remove unnecessary objects.

Over the years of using a computer, duplicates usually accumulate on it: accidentally copied pictures, songs downloaded several times, and other objects. You don't need these copies, and together they can take up significant storage space. To avoid searching for them yourself, use one of these to find and remove duplicate files.

Windows 10 comes with a built-in Compact OS utility that can make your system smaller. This happens by removing unnecessary OS elements and compressing the remaining data. This way you can free up to 6 GB on the local drive where Windows is installed (usually drive C). If you're interested, make sure to back up your important data just in case and use .

Over time, a large number of unnecessary files accumulate on the main partition of the hard drive, which is called the letter C by default, taking up a lot of space. Since the disk allocated for the system and system elements most often has a small volume, the presence of temporary files and files left over from deleted programs can lead to the fact that free space on the disk becomes catastrophically low. Manually deleting files from this drive is very difficult because they may be located very deep in the folder system, and it is also dangerous because you can accidentally erase items that are necessary for the computer to function correctly. To safely clean up your system disk in Windows 10, your best bet is to use the built-in Disk Cleanup program.

Windows 10 Disk Cleanup: Built-in Tools

There are several ways to open the Disk Cleanup program in Windows 10. Remember that you should only use it if drive C is full and there is no way to clean it by removing third-party programs.

Through command execution

Via control panel

How to use the program

1. In the “Disk Cleanup” block, you need to check all the departments that you want to clean.
2. Having selected a department, you can read all the information about what it contains, as well as view the files that belong to this section by clicking the “View files” button.
3. To proceed to removing system files, click the “Clean up system files” button. You will need administrator rights to access this feature. But it is better not to remove any elements of the system, as this may lead to system breakdown or incorrect operation.
4. In the “Advanced” tab, you can proceed to remove unnecessary programs by clicking the “Clean” button in the “Programs and Features” block.
5. In the “System Restore and Shadow Copies” block, you can click the “Clean” button to proceed to deleting unnecessary recovery points that also take up space on drive C. It is not recommended to delete all points, and it is also better to save one or two of the last ones in order to always have the ability to roll back the system if some error occurs that cannot be corrected by other methods.
6. Once you have selected which partitions you want to clean and have ticked them, click the OK button to begin the process. Do not interrupt the cleaning process or turn off the computer so that no errors occur and all files are deleted correctly.

Advanced Cleaning

Each user with administrator rights has the opportunity to launch the Disk Cleanup program with more options than there are during normal startup.

What to do if the application does not start

The program may not open using any of the above methods only because the file responsible for launching the application is not in the default path. Try to find this file manually, it may be located in the following path: C:\WINDOWS\ServicePackFiles\i386. If it is not there either, or the folder itself does not exist, then there is only one thing left to do - use third-party programs to clean up the disk.

How to clean up drive C on Windows 10 using third-party programs and applications

There are many programs that allow you to clean your hard drive from unnecessary and temporary files. Many of them are distributed on the Internet for free and are in no way inferior to the built-in Disk Cleanup program. Next, we will consider the most popular, convenient and easy-to-use applications.

CCleaner

The positive aspects of this program include the following qualities:

Kaspersky Cleaner

A program from a well-known campaign that previously specialized only in antiviruses, but has now started producing applications with other tasks. You can download Cleaner from Kaspersky from the official website by finding it in the general list of all programs -

The main advantage of the application is its simple design, which allows you to complete all the necessary tasks by pressing one “Start scanning” button.

Also, if you don’t like the changes made by the program after the last session, you can cancel them by clicking the “Cancel Changes” button in the main menu.

What can cause your hard drive to fill up?

If you have cleaned up your disk using one of the above methods, but have not freed up enough space, try the following:

• Manually go through all the files stored on the drive and see which ones can be moved to another drive or deleted. Do not touch system files and programs; you can only move and edit elements that you personally added.
• Remove unnecessary third-party programs that are definitely not useful to you.
• Check your computer for viruses. Perhaps the virus itself takes up some of the free space or regularly downloads advertising files and applications that clog up the disk.

It is recommended that you clean out the C drive regularly, as how busy it is will determine how quickly the computer can find the files you need and present them to the user. That is, if drive C is overloaded, the system runs slower. And also, all browsers and other programs send temporary files and cache to the main disk by default, and if there is no space on it, then there will be nowhere to store the necessary elements. Based on all the problems described, we can conclude that it is worth cleaning the disk using special programs at least once a month.

Over time, computer performance decreases. And this is primarily due to the “cluttering” of the operating system with temporary files, logs, etc. The best solution in this situation is to reinstall the OS. But what to do if it’s scary to do it yourself, or you simply don’t have enough time to configure the initial parameters and unpack the software? Read our article. She will tell you how to completely clean your computer without uninstalling Windows.

Types of computer cleaning

To solve this problem, you need to apply all known ways to increase PC performance. Completing only one of the steps does not guarantee successful resolution of the problem.

Removing junk using CCleaner

This software cleans up all the tails after uninstalling programs, surfing the Internet and deleting files. Therefore, for the initial cleaning stage, there is no better application. So do the following:

1. Download CCleaner from this link if you don't have it.
2. Install on your computer following the prompts of the Installation Wizard.
3. Open the application and go to the “Cleaning” tab – “Windows”.
   
   
4. In the list that appears, check the box next to the fields you want to run.
   

   Attention! Deleting temporary files, emptying the trash, etc. it is impossible to cancel. Data will be lost forever!

5. Next, go to the “Applications” tab and also activate the required fields. This module does an excellent job of clearing cache, cookies and browser history.
   
   
   

   Attention! Pay attention to the “Saved Passwords” item. When activated, all login data for sites will be deleted. Create a backup copy or uncheck the box.

6. Now all that remains is to press the “Clear” key, confirm the action and wait for the operation to complete.
   
   
7. After completing this module, go to the "Registry" tab. Here, all parameters are selected by default; it is not recommended to edit them.
8. Now click “Search for problems”, and after scanning, click “Fix”.
   
   
9. In a new window, refuse to create a backup copy.
   
   
   

Freeing up RAM

The fullness of RAM is one of the most important factors. There are no short instructions for cleaning it; the issue must be approached with all seriousness. Therefore, we recommend that you read the article: “”

Defragmenting your hard drive

This measure not only increases the performance of the system, but also extends the life of the equipment. Users copy, move, and delete files all the time. This leaves a serious imprint on the functioning of the hard drive.

The fact is that during the above manipulations with the object, data is written to free memory cells. If the file is too large and does not fit in a certain area, it is divided (fragmented) and recorded in different areas of the HDD. This, in turn, increases the hard drive’s response time to provide information and causes stuttering.

Attention! This operation will completely delete all data. Back up your important files. Do not format the system partition!

I will end here. Now you know how to completely clean your computer without uninstalling Windows. Be careful with formatting and keep your computer software clean. Good luck!