How to Empty WD My Passport for Fresh Start?

WD External and Portable SSD Portable SSD
1

Hi. So my PC’s internal 1TB hard drive is nearing full and I’m trying to figure out how to expand my storage.

I have a WD 1TB My Passport external drive from 2013. I had used it way back then to backup my files and I created a Windows image as well.

I wanted to delete all the old backup files from My Passport, and delete the old Windows image and get back to a clean start with just the WD software it came with, and I’m not sure which files to delete.

My idea was that after that I would create a full image of my system onto My Passport, to buy a new internal hard drive with larger capacity (maybe 6TB ?), and then copy the full image onto the new internal hard drive, and hopefully not need to re-install anything individually at all. I also assume I will need to make a boot disk onto a flash drive so that when I’ve taken out my old hard drive and put in the new one I am able to boot the computer, and then allowing me to then copy the full image onto the new hard drive.

I’m not sure how I do any of that properly, and could really use some detailed step by step guidance for someone who is very novice and quite nervous about all of this.

When I look at what’s on My Passport right now I see these files:

MediaID.bin 3/1/2013 BIN file 1 KB
WD Apps Setup 6/13/2012 Application 4,125 KB
WD Smartware.swstor 3/3/2014 File Folder 132 GB
My Name-PC 3/3/2014 File Folder < the icon looks like a disk+arrow 0 bytes
WindowsImageBackup 3/1/2013 File Folder 186 GB
WD Apps for Windows 11/17/2012 File Folder 92.3 MB
User Manuals 11/17/2012 File Filder 41 MB
Extras 11/17/2012 File Folder 37.3 KB
Locale 11/17/2012 File Folder 2.47 MB
My Passport Apps for Mac 11/17/2012 File Folder 51.3 MB

2

If you wish to completely wipe the drive then you can try data erasure software such as BitRaser File Eraser, this will clean sweep your drive and make it ready to re-use as a fresh new drive.

You can try formatting or factory resetting your disk drive but that will not sweep out the drive’s data completely, because whenever you delete any document or file from your system or any storage device then the data is not completely wiped out from that location and the traces of those deleted files are still present on the sectors of the storage drive, until & unless it’s overwritten by any other data or else it was treated by any data erasure software to delete the file permanently.

That’s why I would suggest you to try data eraser software like BitRaser File Eraser to permanently wipe your storage drive and make it ready to use for fresh start.

3

better make sure the PC supports UEFI … otherwise it’s gonna have a major problem booting to a 6TB Hard drive.

and when you say “create a full system image” i assume you mean cloning it ? … if so, don’t clone the sectors otherwise another major problem … sector mis-match error.