Video walkthrough · 6:27 · 9 chapters
How to securely wipe a drive, and prove it
Every step, start to finish: from the desktop app to a bootable USB stick, through the BIOS boot menu, to a verified wipe of the laptop’s own drive and a certificate anyone can check.
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In this video
What you’ll learn
Why the system disk is protected
Fail-closed protection, and a read-only audit that never writes a byte.
Chapter at 0:34
Wipe and verify a drive
NIST 800-88 Clear with 100% full read-back, armed by the drive’s own identifier.
Chapter at 1:25
Build a bootable USB
One click in the desktop app, no command line, license copied onto the stick.
Chapter at 2:43
Boot menu, BIOS and Secure Boot
Boot keys by brand, Surface button combos, and when to switch Secure Boot off.
Chapter at 3:30
Firmware Purge an NVMe SSD
The drive erases itself, then read-back confirms every sampled region is zero.
Chapter at 4:23
Prove it with the certificate
A SHA-256 tamper-evident certificate, checked in the browser at proofwipe.com/verify.
Chapter at 5:30
Transcript
Prefer to read it?
The complete narration, chapter by chapter. Captions are also available on the video.
Read the full transcript
0:00Why deleting isn’t enough
This is ProofWipe. In the next few minutes, you’ll learn how to securely wipe a computer’s drives, so the machine can be resold or reused, and walk away with a certificate that proves it. Deleting files, or even reformatting a drive, doesn’t actually remove the data. Free recovery tools can bring it right back. ProofWipe implements the NIST 800-88 Clear and Purge methods, aligned with Canada’s CSE guidance. Then it checks the result, and certifies it.
0:34The ProofWipe app
Start by running ProofWipe. It’s a single portable file, so you can run it straight from a USB stick, with nothing to install. Windows asks for administrator permission. ProofWipe needs that to talk to your drives directly. Every drive in the machine is listed, with its model, its capacity, and its real serial number. Notice the drive Windows is running from is marked protected. ProofWipe will never let you wipe it from inside Windows. Protection is fail-closed. If ProofWipe can’t be certain a drive is safe to wipe, it stays protected. You can also run a read-only audit on any drive, even a protected one. It reads the drive and reports what it finds, without writing a single byte.
1:25Wipe a spare or external drive
Second drives, external drives, and USB sticks can be wiped right here in Windows. Step one: select the drive. Step two: choose a wipe method. NIST Clear overwrites the whole drive, and works on anything. Firmware purge needs a direct connection to the drive, so it’s greyed out for USB sticks. Hover over any option for plain-English guidance on when to use it. Step three: verification. Choose 100%. After wiping, ProofWipe reads back every single byte, to prove the data is really gone. Step four: type your name. It’s printed on the certificate. Step five: arm the drive, by typing its identifier. That proves you’re looking at the exact drive you mean to erase. Click start batch. A final review lists exactly what will be destroyed, and only then do you confirm. Now you get live progress, speed, and time remaining. When the wipe finishes, the read-back verification runs on its own. Verified. A PDF and HTML certificate are saved automatically.
2:43Make the bootable USB
But what about the laptop’s own drive, the one Windows runs from? For that, you boot the machine from a ProofWipe USB stick. Click Create bootable USB. The first time, ProofWipe installs Microsoft’s free boot tools for you. There’s no command line involved. Pick a spare USB stick, 2 GB or larger. Your system disk will never appear in this list. Everything on the stick will be erased, so make sure it’s a spare. Then click Erase and build. Your license is copied onto the stick automatically. And one stick can wipe every machine in the rack.
3:30Boot the machine from the stick
Now take the stick to the machine you’re wiping. Plug it in, power it on, and start tapping the boot menu key. On Dell and Lenovo, that’s F12. On HP, it’s F9. On ASUS and Acer, try F12, or escape. In the boot menu, pick the entry for your USB stick, and press enter. The machine starts ProofWipe, instead of Windows. Nothing on the internal drive is running now, so it can finally be wiped.
4:00Surface & Secure Boot
On a Microsoft Surface, hold volume down, press and release power, and keep holding volume down until the logo appears. If a machine refuses to start from the stick, open its UEFI settings, and turn Secure Boot off for the wipe. Just remember to turn it back on when you’re done.
4:23Wipe the internal drive
Accept the terms, then check the drive list. The USB stick you booted from is always protected. The internal drive now shows as wipeable. Take a second to check its model and serial number against the machine in front of you. For solid-state drives, choose firmware Purge. The drive erases itself, including hidden spare areas that an overwrite can’t reach. Choose 100% verification, for a full read-back. Arm it, by typing the last four characters of the drive’s serial number. If the serial can’t be used, ProofWipe shows you its device ID instead. Final confirmation. Type ERASE. A firmware purge can’t be cancelled once the drive starts erasing. On a 256 GB NVMe drive, a purge takes about two minutes. Final readable state: confirmed zeros. Every region ProofWipe read back is empty. If a drive refuses the purge command, nothing is written, and you’re offered NIST Clear instead. A failure is never reported as a success.
5:30Your certificate
The certificate and its log are written to the USB stick, so the proof leaves the machine with you. It records the drive, its serial number, the method, the verification result, the operator, and the date and time. A SHA-256 fingerprint ties the certificate to its log. If anyone changes either one, it no longer matches. Keep a copy in your records for every machine. It’s your proof, for clients and for auditors.
5:59Verify a certificate online
Anyone can check a certificate at proofwipe.com/verify. Drop in the certificate and its log. The check runs right in your browser, and nothing is uploaded. A match means the certificate is exactly as ProofWipe wrote it. That’s it. Wipe it, verify it, and prove it. Get ProofWipe at proofwipe.com.
The boot menu, UEFI and boot-console scenes are illustrations recreated from real runs on ThinkPad hardware; drive, license and operator details shown are fictional. The desktop app scenes and the certificate check are real recordings.
Ready to try it on your own drives?
ProofWipe is free to download. The written guide covers the same steps with screenshots.