Erasing Files

I know when you click delete a file file from you hard disc it doesnt
fully delel it. Can you tell me how i can fully delete it so that there is no
record of it and also how i can recover it if have clicked delete

thanks

The only way to truly delete a file is after the traditional method of
deleting, run a program like Eraser: http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/ Freeware
that overwrites the "blank" data on a hard drive.

To retrieve a file after a traditional delete, you need special softwa

You need to quit using the partition that the files were deleted from in
order to prevent the deleted files from being overwritten. You will need
help trying to retrieve the files:

IRecover, $50 to $100, The demo version gives an indication of what
information can be recovered from your hard disk but data is not recovered.
http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/~tkuur...x.htm#irecover If your data is
valuable, the author of the software provides tech support should you run
into problems.

Recover4All, $49, demo will retrieve files up to 10 kb and show what else
can be retrieved. Retrieved files are copied to another drive:
http://www.recover4all.com/

Restoration, Freeware, not tried:
http://www.webattack.com/get/restoration.html

--
Regards

Ron Badour, MS MVP for W98
Tips: http://home.satx.rr.com/badour
Knowledge Base Info:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=kbinfo

"salty" wrote in message
...
I know when you click delete a file file from you hard disc it doesnt
fully delel it. Can you tell me how i can fully delete it so that there is
no
record of it and also how i can recover it if have clicked delete

thanks

The only way to truly delete a file is after the traditional method of
deleting, run a program like Eraser: http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/ Freeware
that overwrites the "blank" data on a hard drive.

To retrieve a file after a traditional delete, you need special softwa

You need to quit using the partition that the files were deleted from in
order to prevent the deleted files from being overwritten. You will need
help trying to retrieve the files:

IRecover, $50 to $100, The demo version gives an indication of what
information can be recovered from your hard disk but data is not recovered.
http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/~tkuur...x.htm#irecover If your data is
valuable, the author of the software provides tech support should you run
into problems.

Recover4All, $49, demo will retrieve files up to 10 kb and show what else
can be retrieved. Retrieved files are copied to another drive:
http://www.recover4all.com/

Restoration, Freeware, not tried:
http://www.webattack.com/get/restoration.html

--
Regards

Ron Badour, MS MVP for W98
Tips: http://home.satx.rr.com/badour
Knowledge Base Info:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=kbinfo

"salty" wrote in message
...
I know when you click delete a file file from you hard disc it doesnt
fully delel it. Can you tell me how i can fully delete it so that there is
no
record of it and also how i can recover it if have clicked delete

thanks

"salty" wrote:

I know when you click delete a file file from you hard disc it doesnt
fully delel it. Can you tell me how i can fully delete it so that there is no
record of it and also how i can recover it if have clicked delete

thanks

A simple way to make deleted files very hard to recover is Defrag the
hard drive. That rewrites the directory entries, removing the
residual records for deleted files thereby making it impossible for
most of the undelete programs to find the starting point for the
deleted files. It also may actually overwrite at least some of the
deleted files but this is not guaranteed.

When a file is deleted all that actually happens is the first
character of the file name is changed to a special code that means
that the file has been deleted. Undelete programs scan the
directories (folders) looking for entries with this special character
and then prompt you to undelete them by supplying the first character
of the original file name.

Hope this is of some assistance.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."

"salty" wrote:

I know when you click delete a file file from you hard disc it doesnt
fully delel it. Can you tell me how i can fully delete it so that there is no
record of it and also how i can recover it if have clicked delete

thanks

A simple way to make deleted files very hard to recover is Defrag the
hard drive. That rewrites the directory entries, removing the
residual records for deleted files thereby making it impossible for
most of the undelete programs to find the starting point for the
deleted files. It also may actually overwrite at least some of the
deleted files but this is not guaranteed.

When a file is deleted all that actually happens is the first
character of the file name is changed to a special code that means
that the file has been deleted. Undelete programs scan the
directories (folders) looking for entries with this special character
and then prompt you to undelete them by supplying the first character
of the original file name.

Hope this is of some assistance.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."

"Ron Martell" wrote in message
...
"salty" wrote:

I know when you click delete a file file from you hard disc it doesnt
fully delel it. Can you tell me how i can fully delete it so that there
is no
record of it and also how i can recover it if have clicked delete

thanks

A simple way to make deleted files very hard to recover is Defrag the
hard drive. That rewrites the directory entries, removing the
residual records for deleted files thereby making it impossible for
most of the undelete programs to find the starting point for the
deleted files. It also may actually overwrite at least some of the
deleted files but this is not guaranteed.

When a file is deleted all that actually happens is the first
character of the file name is changed to a special code that means
that the file has been deleted.

All associated clusters are also marked as free/available.

Undelete programs scan the
directories (folders) looking for entries with this special character
and then prompt you to undelete them by supplying the first character
of the original file name.

The undelete will be successful as long as the file was contiguous.


Hope this is of some assistance.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."

"Ron Martell" wrote in message
...
"salty" wrote:

I know when you click delete a file file from you hard disc it doesnt
fully delel it. Can you tell me how i can fully delete it so that there
is no
record of it and also how i can recover it if have clicked delete

thanks

A simple way to make deleted files very hard to recover is Defrag the
hard drive. That rewrites the directory entries, removing the
residual records for deleted files thereby making it impossible for
most of the undelete programs to find the starting point for the
deleted files. It also may actually overwrite at least some of the
deleted files but this is not guaranteed.

When a file is deleted all that actually happens is the first
character of the file name is changed to a special code that means
that the file has been deleted.

All associated clusters are also marked as free/available.

Undelete programs scan the
directories (folders) looking for entries with this special character
and then prompt you to undelete them by supplying the first character
of the original file name.

The undelete will be successful as long as the file was contiguous.


Hope this is of some assistance.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."

On Tue, 19 Oct 2004 20:51:46 -0000, "SFB - KB3MM" in
microsoft.public.win98.performance wrote:

Undelete programs scan the
directories (folders) looking for entries with this special character
and then prompt you to undelete them by supplying the first character
of the original file name.

The undelete will be successful as long as the file was contiguous.

I thought that a noncontiguous file fragment still had a pointer at the end
to the next fragment location. ??

Many "diskwasher" programs are around that overwrite available space.
I know that used to be part of the Norton package and I guess still is.

Also,
" Alt+Wash Disk - Fill the unused area of a disk with nulls or random
data to protect against unerasure of sensitive data."
is part of Ztree. (Any space marked FREE, hence any deleted file, would be
part of "unused space".

Of course, in a pinch, a strong magnetic field will physically delete files.
:-)


FACE

On Tue, 19 Oct 2004 20:51:46 -0000, "SFB - KB3MM" in
microsoft.public.win98.performance wrote:

Undelete programs scan the
directories (folders) looking for entries with this special character
and then prompt you to undelete them by supplying the first character
of the original file name.

The undelete will be successful as long as the file was contiguous.

I thought that a noncontiguous file fragment still had a pointer at the end
to the next fragment location. ??

Many "diskwasher" programs are around that overwrite available space.
I know that used to be part of the Norton package and I guess still is.

Also,
" Alt+Wash Disk - Fill the unused area of a disk with nulls or random
data to protect against unerasure of sensitive data."
is part of Ztree. (Any space marked FREE, hence any deleted file, would be
part of "unused space".

Of course, in a pinch, a strong magnetic field will physically delete files.
:-)


FACE

"FACE" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 19 Oct 2004 20:51:46 -0000, "SFB - KB3MM"
in
microsoft.public.win98.performance wrote:

Undelete programs scan the
directories (folders) looking for entries with this special character
and then prompt you to undelete them by supplying the first character
of the original file name.

The undelete will be successful as long as the file was contiguous.

I thought that a noncontiguous file fragment still had a pointer at the
end
to the next fragment location. ??

The fragment contains nothing - the info is in the FAT.

You may want to:

Read the spec for the FAT/FAT32 file system and then get your favorite
DISK HEX EDITOR.

Find a noncontiguous file (a few clusters is fine) and look at the directory
entry.
Using the FAT pointer there, trace the FAT for the file.

Then delete the file:

Look at the directory entry again and note the changed first letter AND the
fact
that the FAT entry is intact. Then try to trace the FAT and notice that all
of the entries for the file now indicate 'no data'. There's no way to find
the clusters that contained the data.
HTH.

Many "diskwasher" programs are around that overwrite available space.
I know that used to be part of the Norton package and I guess still is.

AH! A cutesy named utility function. Never use them.

Very easy to overwrite free space. Just read thru the FAT and when ever you
find a free cluster write zeroes to the cluster; don't have to know
anything about the data that used to be in the clusters.


Also,
" Alt+Wash Disk - Fill the unused area of a disk with nulls or
random
data to protect against unerasure of sensitive
data."
is part of Ztree. (Any space marked FREE, hence any deleted file, would
be
part of "unused space".

Of course, in a pinch, a strong magnetic field will physically delete
files.

Is that a fact or part of an old myth?

:-)


FACE