Completely destroying items long after deletion

[JerometheGiraff]

I know there are programs out there that can shred files when deleted, unlike sending them directly to the recycling bin. Are there any programs that can shred files sent to the recycling bin even after the recycling bin is empty ?

I'm referring to files deleted in the past, we know that those files are not completely destroyed after they are emptied from the recycling bin. How can I guarantee there are no fragments left regardless if it was deleted yesterday, last week or 3+ years ago ? I read you can save some space if you completely destroy it.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

A program such as CCleaner has a provision to "wipe free space".

I've never used it, but I assume it would write zeroes to any space on the HD that was not occupied by a currently undeleted file.

That might accomplish what you want, but I don't know how you could ever confirm that it had.

 

[logicearth]

I read you can save some space if you completely destroy it.

That would be wrong. You gain nothing back when the file is deleted and the space used by it marked as free thus you regain the space that was used by it. Wiping the free space won't return any more free space.

 

[Oaken]

A program such as CCleaner has a provision to "wipe free space".

I've never used it, but I assume it would write zeroes to any space on the HD that was not occupied by a currently undeleted file.

That might accomplish what you want, but I don't know how you could ever confirm that it had.

You can wipe the free space though previous defragging could mean some old files could be recovered forensically.

You can use something like the freeware Recuver to gauge whether files you have deleted are still recoverable, though this is by no means absolute.

 

[whs]

There are programs that do a "military erase" - they write e.g. zeros over that space so many times that there is practically no way to retrieve any data.

 

[brady]

There is no piece of software on the market (private or public) that will remove data from a hard drive. If the hard drive is intact, we can pull data off of it (no matter what).

 

[Oaken]

Who are "We" out of interest?

 

[Devux]

Who are "We" out of interest?

"We" don't exist...Like area 51

Darik's Boot And Nuke | Hard Drive Disk Wipe and Data Clearing
This will write random data onto a hard drive for as many passes as you want. Uses really good algorithms for random data. But this will blow away everything on the drive. Only sure fire way to get rid of old data is with a BFH.

 

[HammerHead]

We and They

When everything goes as it should it is WE that did it.

When things break bad and it is a failure THEY did it.

 

[bobkn]

Who are "We" out of interest?

The NSA (National Security Agency).

Didn't you know that they monitored this forum?

Don't forget to wear your tinfoil hat.

Tin foil hat - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Oaken]

Don't forget to wear your tinfoil hat.

:roflmao:

It's well polished and sat atop my head as I type.

 

[JerometheGiraff]

http://www.dban.org/

Darik's Boot And Nuke | Hard Drive Disk Wipe and Data Clearing
This will write random data onto a hard drive for as many passes as you want. Uses really good algorithms for random data. But this will blow away everything on the drive. Only sure fire way to get rid of old data is with a BFH.

BFH, Are you saying Dariks Boot and Nuke will do what I want or will only erase new files securely ?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Darik's Boot and Nuke will wipe the ENTIRE drive, including but not limited to files that have been deleted from the recycle bin. That's easy to do and there are a lot of programs that will do this. But they won't wipe just deleted files--they wipe everything.

 

[stormy13]

Hope you either don't have a lot of free space on the hard drive, or if you do lots of time,