The Windows tool Diskpart overwrites all data on the hard drive with a zero, which is considered a secure deletion method. This applies at least to classic hard drives, i.e. HDDs with magnetic discs.

The issue occurs if the WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) service is not running or stopped. You can check the status of the WMI Service in the Windows 11/10 ...

If you don’t routinely back up your data and have lost essential files from an external hard drive, external hard drive recovery can be challenging. External hard disk data recovery can be more ...