Windows 7: data recovery + deletion

Hi everyone,

I want to donate my old laptop but there are several documents that have been deleted in the past but can easily be recoverd.



When I run 'restore deleted files' (from TuneUp Utilities) to recover those documents and delete them thoroughly the recovered documents stay on the HDD.

Does anyone knows a software program that can delete files from the HDD after recovery?


Thank you for any help offerd

Before using Acer Recovery, clean the HD Drive with this tutorial:
SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation

Thank you for the quick reply Theog.

Is it then possible to just reinstall Windows 7, I mean will this delete these documents for sure?

You must do a secure erase - e.g. with Dban

I've used a free app called Disk Redactor which overwrites free disk space with zeroes leaving the system intact. You just delete and/or uninstall everything you want to lose before running it.

You can also use DiskPart's Clean All command.

Disk - Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command

For anyone else viewing this thread - it really is best to have some kind of stategy for items you store on your computer i.e. if something is sensitive and contains personal information then store it in some encrypted form then it will not matter if you delete it provided you use appropriate software and don't leave your secure password pinned to your monitor. For other items either just delete, in which case they might be recoverable or erase them with the many available options. Think what if my system was stolen. A simple clean free space erase will usually get rid of most deleted items. There are often things like account passwords that might be found so perhaps something like RoboForm or other software could deal with these.

Agreed. Another option definitely worth considering is using TrueCrypt to encrypt any HD partition in its entirety, including the Windows system.

That way if your laptop ever does get stolen, there's no way for the thief to boot into Windows without knowing your Truecrypt password (even if he has the Truecrypt rescue CD).

This would include both existing and already-deleted files (as the entire partition including free space is encrypted).

I've used Disk Reactor and it worked pretty well but a couple of deleted word files can still be read so I'll try a second run.


Thank you!