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I know that on the windows operating system, when you delete a file it's still recoverable. I'd like to avoid simply paving the harddrive with zeros as I would like to keep my OS installation as is, but is there a way to truly delete files that have been previously deleted?

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8 Answers

up vote 13 down vote accepted

Eraser

You want to choose the wipe free space option.

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Didn't know Eraser had that option - good choice! – Dan Walker Sep 1 '09 at 20:41
excellent choice. +1 – Molly7244 Sep 1 '09 at 22:22
Thank you, Eraser looks wonderful. I just wiped a whole load of files from my computer and was about to post a question, when whola! there you go, there's an answer just right there! – ymasood Sep 1 '09 at 22:28
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up vote 8 down vote

Actually CCleaner should do it with Gutmann secure file deletion and "wipe free space drives" enabled!

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That's going to take sometime. Isn't DOD-level deletion (3 passes) enough for secure deletion? – Isxek Sep 1 '09 at 21:52
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That depends on your needs. The CIA might still be able to recover data after 3 passes. A while ago I read that it was possible to restore data after 7 deletes. – Christian Sep 1 '09 at 22:00
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Ture paran...err...security knows patience ;). – Don Salva Sep 1 '09 at 22:03
A maximum of 5 passes (10 for CIA) of random data should really be enough. Gutmann himself has said`^W`written that his 35-pass wipe is completely pointless on today's disks - different bit encoding, higher densities, and so on. – grawity Sep 8 '09 at 13:09
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A single zero fill is enough. news.softpedia.com/news/… – Robert Harvey Sep 18 '09 at 3:34
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up vote 6 down vote

No need for additional software.

Drop into a command prompt and use the built-in CIPHER command.

cipher /w:C:\

  1. Quit all programs.
  2. Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then press ENTER.
  3. Type cipher /w:driveletter:\foldername, and then press ENTER. Specify the drive and the folder that identifies the volume that contains the deleted data that you want to overwrite. Data that is not allocated to files or folders will be overwritten. This permanently removes the data. This can take a long time if you are overwriting a large space.
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up vote 1 down vote

Keep using your PC. After, say, a week, there'll be nothing left to recover. The only times when recovering is really, really effective is when people get their hands on drives that were just quick-reformatted and then sold, nothing else done to them.

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up vote 1 down vote

Have you tried File Shredder?

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up vote 0 down vote

There is a program called Prevent Restore, but I have never used it and never heard of the author, so I can't vouch for its quality.

CCleaner has the option to securely clear the Recycle Bin and Temp files, but not those that you have already deleted.

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up vote 0 down vote

You can always checkout www.fileshredder.org They have an option to shred non localized disk space.

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up vote 0 down vote

The excellent PortableApps has two cleaner programs:

enter image description here

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