Can Windows 7 cipher.exe securely wipe USB drive?

Question

Using the command line tool cipher.exe built into Windows 7, can it be used to securely wipe a USB attached drive?

slhck · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-09 08:07:13Z

up vote 4 down vote accepted

Yes, but it may be slow compared to other tools that do the same job.

cipher /w:X

Substitute the drive letter X for your flash drive.

Remember this only overwrites free space, so delete all files first.

edited Jan 9 at 8:07

slhck♦
55.7k1089148

answered Jan 14 '11 at 2:06

Moab
33.2k13068

	Most free-space wipe tools I've seen, including `sdelete` and `cipher /w` work the same way: they create a really big file and fill it with random data (which they most likely obtain using `CryptGenRandom`). I don't see why would `cipher` be slower than others. – grawity Jan 14 '11 at 12:31
	@ grawity, I did use the word "may"....somacon.com/p253.php – Moab Jan 14 '11 at 15:31
	`cipher /w:X:` with double point at the end for drive X! – schtebo Jan 9 at 6:58

jftuga · Answer 2 · 2011-01-14 03:06:23Z

up vote 0 down vote

answered Jan 14 '11 at 3:06

jftuga
1,680514

migrated from serverfault.com Jan 14 '11 at 1:17