Using Thumb drives, externals, etc with XP

[XP_Fan]

I use thumb drives, an external hard drive and dvds to store private/sensitive financial and other data rather than keeping it on my main drive. My question is, when files are opened on my pc from these various external sources, does a copy of the data get automatically saved on the main hard drive? Or, does the data simply disappear from memory once the files are closed? I use XP Home- sp3. Thanks in advance for any responses.

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

Welcome to the Windows Forum.

No copy is made to the hard drive, but a shortcut to the file/document may be inserted into the 'Recent Documents' folder. These are easily cleaned with CCleaner.

[y2khardtop]

it is always possible that bits of your data could be temporarily stored in memory, which could then be moved to your paging/swap file. This would not be easily accessible by someone wanting your data, but it is possible. Some programs also keep a working copy of your files while open (word for instance), and bits of that could be left behind if the program would crash during use.

None of this would be easy to find by a casual user, but a serious hacker could possibly access it if ultimate security is your concern.

[XP_Fan]

Thanks for your answers. It appears there is no huge risk but I think I will start using one of the cleaner programs such as Cyberscrub just to be on the safe side.

This is a great forum and I look forward to spending some time here.

Thanks a bunch.