Is your data REALLY "completely removed"? Need a reliable shredder!
Thu, 08/30/2007 - 06:36 — Runbo
I think many people would be interested to learn about these shredders. Since when we "completely remove" a file in recycle bin in a Windows PC, that file actually still remains on the hard drive (until it is overwritten by other files). This usually means that many files can be recovered using many utilities which are quite easy to obtain. I know there's also other utilities that completely destroy that data by overwriting them.
Can someone give me a name of a reliable and free data shredder? I'm selling this computer, but I need to shred some personal information on it. If there's any other free utilities which removes junk (temporary files, duplicates, cookies, any traces of personal information, etc.), could you suggest them to me?
Thanks.
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oh, and I forgot to mention,
oh, and I forgot to mention, if you can, please tell me if these utilities are XP compatible. Thanks
CCleaner
Try CCleaner. It is free, reliable and it works both on XP and Windows Vista.
If you want to make sure your computer has no data before you sell it, format your partitions.
Need more than that to make sure
Just formatting your hard drive will not erase the physical data, it is still rather easily retrievable. If you want to be really, really sure your data is gone, consider using an utility that wipes your hard drive fully over with random data several times. You can probably do this with a suitable Linux live CD.
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