Permanently erasing data on hard drive to make it unrecoverable

[Chuck]

Not sur eif this is the most appropriate sub-topic, but I'll get started and I'm sure some kind sould will redirect me if required.

I am donating a 5 year old laptop to a friend's daughter. it runs XP updated with SP3.

Over the years it has been used for some sensitive stuff including bank & credit card a't want accounts. Naturally I want to comlpetely erase this data. But I want to leave the operating system and the already paid for software on it.

I thought I was being clever using File Shredder for the remaining files and also its shred free space option to remove all the files that long ago got pushed out of the recycle bin (or that bypassed it). So I just ran UndeletePLus and was amazed to find hundreds of perfectly recoverable files, some just spill over from recycle bin, others in what would normally be in hidden system folders leaving tracks to old software, websites, etc I recovered a few at random and was aghast at what personal information I found!

What am I doing wrong? I assumed all that would be left is what is currently in the recycle bin and current operating system files.

[RandyL]

File Shredder does do a pretty good job of deleting files. To be honest though you should at the very least format and reinstall Windows before giving it away.

 

There are programs for erasing the drive and overwriting it because even after a format some files can be recovered.

 

Businesses that deal with sensitive data will remove the drive and destroy it before donating a computer. The only sure fire way in my opinion.

 

If the person you are giving it to is not hell bent on recovering data then simple cleaners will delete/hide most things. Over time data will be rewritten to those sectors making retrieval much more difficult.

 

I know of no way to completely hide or delete everything while leaving the OS and programs intact. At the very least there will be traces if one knows how.