ShredOS
A small bootable environment for 64-bit PCs that securely wipes disks using nwipe.
These buttons open the developer's own site, repository or store listing in a new tab. wares.gg does not host downloads.
About ShredOS
ShredOS is a minimal operating system that you boot from a USB drive to erase disks on a 64-bit Intel, AMD or compatible PC. It starts straight into nwipe, a disk wiping program, so you can pick drives and overwrite them without installing anything on the machine.
It suits people preparing computers for resale, disposal or reuse who want a dedicated wiping tool that runs outside the installed system.
Strengths
- Boots directly into the nwipe disk eraser
- Runs outside the installed operating system
- Works on Intel, AMD and compatible 64-bit processors
Limitations
- Only for 64-bit x86 machines
- Wiping is irreversible, so choosing the wrong drive destroys data
Details
- Pricing
- FreeFree to download and use.
- License
- Open source, license not stated
- Developer
- PartialVolume
- Platforms
- Linux
- How it runs
- Operating system
- Account
- Not required
- Works offline
- Yes
- Best suited for
- Wiping drives before selling, recycling or reusing a computer
- Categories
- Disk tools, Privacy tools
- Last verified
- Added
- Provenance
- Facts checked against the developer's own pages and store listings, 1 sources on file.
Alternatives to ShredOS
Compare allSoftware that can replace ShredOS for an important use case, and what changes if you switch.
nwipe
Erase block devices from a Linux terminal or text interface.
nwipe is the eraser ShredOS boots into, run from an installed Linux system's terminal instead of a standalone bootable environment.
Parted Magic
A bootable disk utility for partitioning, cloning, rescuing, benchmarking and securely erasing drives from a USB stick.
Parted Magic is a paid bootable toolkit with NIST SP 800-88 compliant secure erase for HDD, SSD, NVMe and eMMC, plus partitioning, cloning and rescue tools.
Hiren's BootCD PE
Bootable Windows PE rescue environment full of diagnostic and repair tools.
Hiren's BootCD PE is a bootable Windows PE rescue image with many repair tools, rather than a dedicated disk wiping environment.
Paragon Hard Disk Manager
Commercial suite for partitioning, backup, migration and secure wiping.
Paragon Hard Disk Manager includes secure wiping and can build bootable recovery media, but it is paid Windows software.
Similar software
Related functionality, not necessarily a direct replacement.
Eraser
An open-source Windows tool that securely erases files and wipes free disk space.
Samsung Magician
Samsung's management app for its consumer SSDs, covering firmware updates, health checks, benchmarks and secure erase.
Kingston SSD Manager
Kingston's utility for monitoring SSD health, updating firmware and securely erasing Kingston drives.
nvme-cli
A Linux command-line tool for managing, inspecting and formatting NVMe solid-state drives.
HDDScan
A free Windows utility for testing hard drives and SSDs, reading SMART data and running surface tests.
GParted
The partition editor for Linux, usually run from its own live USB so it can resize the disk it is not booted from.
