Purge that hard drive
When you delete a file, the file is not deleted!
When you remove it from the Recycle Bin,
the file is still not deleted! All that happens
is that the file system pointer to the file
is removed. The contents of the file are
still on your hard drive. All the file system did was "release"
the space for future use. Even formatting your hard drive will not remove the contents.
Sounds like the lazy way to do things, eh?
Yes, and there ought to be other options,
but that's just the way it is.
You can do something about it though. There are
programs that purge your hard drive. Depending
on the program, you can purge one file at
a time, one folder at a time, all the empty
space, or the whole enchilada. The empty
space is all the space that has never been
used, or that the file system has released
(when you "deleted" those files).
If I were you, before I sold or gave my computer
away, I'd purge all the sensitive files and
then purge all the empty space. It's also
good practice to keep your files and hard
drive cleaned anyway. You never know when
someone might have access to your computer.
For example, a guest or repairman. What about
a dead hard drive? You may not want to just
throw it away, because data can be recovered
from most dead drives. Fred Langa has some ideas to prevent it.
There is an alternative: Just encrypt all your sensitive files in
the first place. That way there never is
much accessible sensitive data on your computer. There will
be some scraps (debris) left over from just
using the data, so purging the hard drive is still
a good idea when you dispose of it. I use
SafeHouse and it works flawlessly. SafeHouse creates
"volumes" to store your sensitive
files in. You can back the volumes up just
like any other file, and the contents are
always secure.
http://www.necrocosm.com/ -- NecroFile is a little program that I've actually used
and I like it. It's simple, but the user
interface is so minimal that it's puzzling
to figure out to use it at first. Once you've
learned, it's easy to use though. NecroFile
can purge the empty space on your drive(s),
delete and purge individual files, and delete
and purge individual folders. Put some folders
and small files on a floppy and NecroFile
a try. It's an easy way to clean up your
hard drive.
http://www.killdisk.com/ -- KillDisk is a program that you put on
a bootable floppy, and then boot your computer. I imagine
a bootable CD would work as well. KillDisk purges everything
on your hard drive. That's OK if you have
the original Windows or recovery disk to
reinstall the system software with.
http://dban.sourceforge.net/ -- "Darik's Boot and Nuke" is
very similar to KillDisk and wipes everything
off the drive.
http://staff.washington.edu/jdlarios/autoclave/index.html -- Autoclave is very similar to KillDisk
and purges everything.
Resources
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-3513_7-5023846-1.html -- Ready to toss that old PC? Read this first
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