Permanently delete files
Have you planned to give away your old computer? And are you thinking by just deleting the files on the hard drive or by performing a quick format you could remove the data permanently from the drive? Remember, the options you are planning to permanent delete the data is not just enough in stopping someone from easily recovering your sensitive information. The information might include your personal documents, photos, bank information, credit card details etc.
When you delete a file, the operating system just deletes the information about the file stored in the file system, but at the physical level the data inside the file still exists. You will come to know this if you run a data recovery program, where you would be able to see the information that you have deleted.
In order to get rid of old data you actually need to overwrite the same physical location on the hard drive several times to permanently remove the data from the hard drive. As once data gets overwritten by new file then recovering such data would become highly unfeasible.
If you are planning to clean drive completely, then there is one utility called Remo Data Sanitizer, which is an advanced disk erasing tool, which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive or logical drives by overwriting it several times with carefully selected pattern and various international disk sanitisation standards. This utility works with Windows NT, 2000, XP and DOS.
Remo Data Sanitizer because of it’s intuitive design and a simple user interface, helps you to safely and easily erase private data from your hard drive.
FYI: You cannot erase the partition where Operating System is installed.
Posted in: Hard Drive Utilities