Software to make old files unrecoverable?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Roan Martin
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R

Roan Martin

Is there any freeware we can use to make deleted files unrecoverable? We
have an older PC in excellent condition we want to give to the grandkids.
We want to make sure if it ever gets in the wrong hands our old business
files cannot be recovered from the HD. The PC is a W98/not second edition.

TIA
 
The idea is to delete files securely _when you delete them_, rather than try
to securely delete what you've already deleted. And yes there is plenty of
freeware out there, google is your friend
 
Is there any freeware we can use to make deleted files unrecoverable? We
have an older PC in excellent condition we want to give to the grandkids.
We want to make sure if it ever gets in the wrong hands our old business
files cannot be recovered from the HD. The PC is a W98/not second edition.

TIA
Click to expand...

Eraser
http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/

regards

Dud
 
Dave said:
The idea is to delete files securely _when you delete them_, rather than try
to securely delete what you've already deleted. And yes there is plenty of
freeware out there, google is your friend
Click to expand...

One approach would be low level formatting the drive several times,
maybe with a random overwrite pattern and then make a fresh windows
install. That should make all info unrecoverable. If I'm not mistaken,
Ultimate Boot Disk and such include utils to erase drives up to DoD
security specs.

K
 
Roan said:
Is there any freeware we can use to make deleted files unrecoverable?
We have an older PC in excellent condition we want to give to the
grandkids. We want to make sure if it ever gets in the wrong hands
our old business files cannot be recovered from the HD. The PC is a
W98/not second edition.
TIA
Click to expand...
The charity that I assist uses Danik's Boot and Nuke program found at
http://dban.sourceforge.net/ to clean up donated systems prior to reuse. We
use it to remove any information people may have accidentally left on the
donated systems, including any virus, worms, or trojans.

It will totally erase "all" drives it can find plugged into the motherboard
once you tell the menu driven program to proceed.

Someone will need to re-install Windows or some other operating system after
using the Dban program.

Keep in mind if your computer is one of those where the vender pre-installed
Windows and was too cheap to include an actual Windows CDROM installation
disk that you will need to purchase a retail copy of Windows to use after
Dban has run on the hard drive(s). The program removes all partitions and
files regardless of where they hide or what they contain. This is actually
a good thing as virus or other malware have been known to hide in those
places waiting for reactivation.

This way we know we should be starting with a "clean" system prior to
installing an operating system for our use or for machines we then re-donate
to other people or organizations.
 
Roan said:
Is there any freeware we can use to make deleted files unrecoverable? We
have an older PC in excellent condition we want to give to the grandkids.
We want to make sure if it ever gets in the wrong hands our old business
files cannot be recovered from the HD. The PC is a W98/not second edition.

TIA
Click to expand...

Free, but may be a pain would be to copy something else on top of the files you
want to make unrecoverable.
i.e.

copy anyprogram.exe private.xls

anyprogram.exe (must be a real name) will be laid on top of private.xls
(Both would be real names of course)

Anyone trying to look at private.xls would get complete gibberish since the
contents make no sense for the data type (xls)

BTW you could then safely delete private.xls.

Lou
I eat my peas with honey.
I've done it all my life.
It makes the peas taste funny.
But it keeps them on my knife.
 
Kalle Piirainen said:
One approach would be low level formatting the drive several times
Click to expand...

Yeah, but what if you don't want to kill the entire drive?!? :) It seems
the OP wants to delete files, not his entire hard disk
 
Free, but may be a pain would be to copy something else on top of the
files you
want to make unrecoverable.
i.e.

copy anyprogram.exe private.xls
Click to expand...

There is very little security in that
 
Free, but may be a pain would be to copy something else on top of the files you
want to make unrecoverable.
i.e.

copy anyprogram.exe private.xls

anyprogram.exe (must be a real name) will be laid on top of private.xls
(Both would be real names of course)

Anyone trying to look at private.xls would get complete gibberish since the
contents make no sense for the data type (xls)
Click to expand...

But the data from private.xls would almost certainly still be on the
drive and still be recoverable. Copying a file over another file
doesn't copy it into the place occupied by the other file, it just
changes the file entry in the directory.
BTW you could then safely delete private.xls.
Click to expand...

All that would do would be to mark the file's directory entry as
deleted and mark it's FAT (or NTFS equivalent) entries as unused.
Deleting a file doesn't actually do anything to the file itself.
 
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