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How to Permanently Remove Files

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Spybot Search & Destroy has a Secure Shredder tool. You can get the program, which is primarily a spyware zapper, for free.

The secure shredder is a tool to get finally rid of files, without any further possibilities of recovery.

Shredding is simple – drop some files from the explorer into the list (or add some using the context menu of the list), select the number of shreds, and click Chop it away.

Usage tracks that are in files will be shredded using this tool, too, using 5 passes.

The first 5 shreds are using pre-defined bit pattern that should make even hardware recovery impossible. Any further pass will use a random bit pattern that is changing every few Bytes.
Please notice: one pass is not enough to shred a file, as the heads of your hard disk won't hit the same track 100,00% of the time. There are small differences of a few µm that will allow pros to reconstruct even overwritten data. That is why multiple shreds are necessary, and why different patterns should be used.

Warning: This tool is designed to remove files so they can not be recovered again! If you use it, be aware of that!
You do not need to use this tool to remove spyware or usage tracks. Spybot-S&D will take care of shredding them on its own.

Disclaimer: I tried my best to finally shred every given to this tool. But I can't guarantee that files will be unrecoverably extinguished.

You can find the secure shredder tool by choosing Secure Shredder from the Tools section in the toolbar to the left.
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Always back things up. Most back up programs do not remove files that have been deleted. There are some file recovery programs that work, check google. I used to like Nortons as you could keep things in the protected bin until you were absolutley sure you wanted it to go. I think it has become bloatware like everything else.

Another thing you can do to delete a file is to make sure you optimize your disk frequently after deletion. Of course if it is the FEDs or the RIAA they have ways of recovering files unless you use a magnet and delete the whole thing.

Interesting topic. Makes you want to ask why of both NJ and SIMV.
 
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Definitely worth the effort to delete things properly, especially if you are selling the computer. I bought my first computer used and with just the OS installed, or so it seemed... My father brought home a utility a friend of his at the Department of Defense had written, and voila - suddenly I had a computer full of programs and files. We wound up reformatting it all anyway, but it was pretty amazing to see.
 
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An employee here just got fired for having something on his PC and I want to make sure that there's nothing on my PC that is even questionable. For instance... sometimes I'll click on a link here and it'll lead to a website or a pic that the IT people here may not like and I want to make sure I don't get into trouble.
 
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ScarletInMyVeins said:
An employee here just got fired for having something on his PC and I want to make sure that there's nothing on my PC that is even questionable. For instance... sometimes I'll click on a link here and it'll lead to a website or a pic that the IT people here may not like and I want to make sure I don't get into trouble.
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In that situation I would think you are safe if you clean out your history, temp internet files, and anything else along those lines. I doubt that your IT guys are going to try to bring back files that you erased. If you have IT Nazi's like that I would be more worried about the web server recording what webpages you are accessing.
 
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Golferdow01 said:
Were these files on an individual computer drive or a shared network drive? If it was a network drive I don't think system restore would be any good. Other than that I would do it
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Files are on a standalone PC.. but will restore permit me to select specific files or will it restore EVERYTHING as to a specific date/time??
 
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I want to delete a file that I downloaded to a point where a file recovery program wouldn't be able to detect it. How do I do that? I guess a guy got fired at work last week for downloading an mp3 file :lol: so I gotta get rid of everything that I've ever downloaded.
 
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