Forum Discussion
2012Coleman
Nov 05, 2013Explorer II
DAWg134 wrote:This is by far the most goofy advice I have ever come across. :H :H :H
One method I've used when absolute security is not a concern is to overwrite all of the free space on the disk, after the personal data has been deleted and the trash emptied.
1) Delete all personal data
2) Defragment the hard drive (to throw off the file pointers)
3) Load an innocuous random file onto a "data" folder on the hard drive - a high-reolution photo of your grandson should do.
4) Copy-and-paste the photo - Windows should automatically rename the new photo
5) Press CTRL-A to select all photos, then conduct the copy-and-paste process once again.
6) Repeat step 5) until you have created approximately 100 or so copies of the photo
7) Conduct a copy-and-paste operation on the "data" folder containing the 100 photos
8) Press CTRL-A to select all folders, then conduct the copy-and-paste process once again.
9) Repeat step 8) until you have filled up the hard drive with folders containing nothing but photos of your grandson. You'll be surprised how quickly this happens, even if it isn't exactly an exponentially increasing function.
10) Finally, delete ALL "data" folders you have created - now, if someone attempts to recover data from your "erased" hard drive, all that they will find are photos of your grandson.
Admittedly, this is the "cheapskate" version of the DoD-approved program that conducts multiple passes of writing random patterns of ones and zeros across all blank portions of the drive, but the method has come in handy when the program was not available.
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