Coreper Posted January 10, 2007 Report Share Posted January 10, 2007 we all know that deleting files wont remove them 100% of the HardDiskive got some questions about this:1. do these files take any space of your HardDisk? [if so, continue to question #2]2. is it possible to remove these files?, 'cause i've only seen programs who can restore them, but can remove themthx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-pops- Posted January 10, 2007 Report Share Posted January 10, 2007 It isn't normally possible to remove files by just deleting them. All that happens on deletion is that they lose the easy access that Windows has to the files which then enables them to be overwritten.If you want to remove individual files and not do a low level format of the drive then prepare a file of, say all zeros, give it the file name and extension of the files you want removing and save to the drive. Windows will tell you that the files exists and ask you if you want to replace it. Say yes. Do this a few times and it will be very difficult to recover the original file. Then delete the replacement file.The only guarantee that files are destroyed, though, is to destroy the drive that they are on. The "authorities" have all sorts of methods not available to normal mortals like us that enable them to find all sorts of things that we thought were long gone from a hard drive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarecrow Man Posted January 10, 2007 Report Share Posted January 10, 2007 Pops is right. You would need a 3rd party program to fully delete the files.http://www.scar5.com/ offers a program called Simple File Shredder, which is freeware and it works quite well. When you delete a file using the conventional Windows delete method, the file is not actually destroyed. Windows simply acknowledges the file is no longer needed and considers it free space. The deleted file will exist in a recoverable state until it's over-written with other data.When you use Simple File Shredder to shred a file, the file is over-written with with random bytes before it's deleted. If the file was ever restored using recovery software, it would be worthless. Simple File Shredder can also shred free space on multiple drives to securely remove files already deleted through Windows.But be aware that these files will probably not be recoverable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coreper Posted January 10, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2007 its not like i have dangerous information on my computer, but i was just curiousi already expected to hear that there was no easy to remove removed filesand do removed files take you hard disk's space? [no, right?]btw: i just thought up something to remove removed files:restore them, and remove them with a shredder [like Simple File Shredder]would that work? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cozofdeath Posted January 10, 2007 Report Share Posted January 10, 2007 do removed files take you hard disk's space? [no, right?]Right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarecrow Man Posted January 10, 2007 Report Share Posted January 10, 2007 Simple File Shredder includes an option to shred the free space (or files already deleted) so you dont need to worry about restoring them and shredding them again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coreper Posted January 11, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 11, 2007 ok thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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