Is your files safely Removed....

Dear Readers,

Everyday as long as we have files that is or are no longer useful to us and to restore more memory space. we will received a pop up message requesting us to delete unwanted file and free up additional space. 

So what do we do, we will immediately perform random house keeping and removed unwanted files just to free up memory space. 

When this is done, we will have more memory space in our Hard disk drive. Then one bad day happen our desktop/laptop/tablet...etc is int trouble. like some of us where basic computer troubleshooting knowledge is limited, our solution will be sending our problematic laptop,desktop,table to the nearest computer repair outlet available to help us resolve the unknown issues. if you are lucky then nothing will happen, when the unimaginable even happen, our happy world will turn into nightmare. 

So how sure are we that our deleted files,photo are actually deleted from our computer system, or more specifically deleted from our hard disk.

According to Preston Gralla of PC world "Delete a file and it's gone from your PC, right? Wrong.

Even when you delete it and then remove it from your Recycle Bin, it can be re-created, using special software. To protect your privacy, when you delete a file, you'd like it to stay deleted. That's what this freebie does. It rewrites any file or folder with a random series of binary data --- and does it multiple times."

Now, as the IT industry evolve even to the extend that phone users needs to make sure that photos and files are securely and permanently deleted from your phone. you will never know what happen when you send your phone for repair.

Are the photos and files really deleted?

According to mackeeper.zeobit.com, If you are selling or lending your Mac, it would be wise to hide or delete any confidential or private files, so that another user will never know about their existence. Some people are so curious that they find time and download file recovery tools that will be able to restore your data! What a challenge to your privacy! How to avoid it? The best way is to get a file shredder. Mac software directories offer a wide range of shredding tools, and you are free to choose the one you like best.

Why "delete" isn't enough?

According to Alyson Munroe from Microsoft home magazine: Too many people think that clearing their history, deleting files and cookies, and emptying their computer's recycle bin is enough. Not so, according to IT specialist Tony Lum. He says that's like removing the table of contents in a book. The chapters (or your files, in this case) are still there, they're just harder to find.

What you've actually done is remove a particular file from the disk's index. The file itself still exists on your hard disk. For the average person it's harder to recover, but an experienced programmer (or hacker) could easily locate the file. Previous or temporary versions of the file might also be saved under different names.

You need to go one step further and overwrite your data. Lum recommends you back up everything you want to keep on your hard drive and then run hard -drive wiping software, which will overwrite your information with random ones and zeros. He also recommends you use a program that overwrites your data more than once. The more it's overwritten, the harder it is to recover.

So How do we do it?

Well basically there are 2 way to do it, base on my personally knowledge, I am pretty sure that most IT guys would know other more technical ways to permanently removed files. As I were saying base on my personal  experience, the 2 method of permanently delete file would be 

~ Format your Hard Disk Drives

Quick Format : removes files from the partition, but does not scan the disk for bad sectors. This option is best when your hard disk has been previously formatted and you are sure that your hard disk is not damaged nor has bad sectors.

Full Format : Formats  on a volume, files are removed from the volume that you are formatting and the hard disk is scanned for bad sectors. The scan for bad sectors is the reason why the Full format takes twice as long as the Quick format.

    

And the 2nd method would be select software to wipe your hard drive clean, this software as mentioned before is the file shredder.

So what is a file shredder? 

File shredder is basically destroys files permanently, without the possibility to recover it again. meaning the files your have just deleted is totally destroyed from the face of the earth.

According to eHow.com : "Selective file deletion programs are traditionally called file shredders. A file shredder alternates between overwriting the files you select with all 0's and all 1's to make the file even harder to recover. A nice, free shredder comes as a separate application with the installer for Spybot Search and Destroy. It's called the Secure Shredder. You just drag and drop files you want shredded and hit go. It seems to get exponentially slower with large numbers of files though and doesn't have any progress bar so you never know when it's going to be done. These two problems may be solved in future versions though."

Like any other available software, there is always to main category, paid and freeware version, there is also a trial version that comes with limited capability with limited time trial period, normally its 30 days trial period. after the trial period is done the software will immediately stops working prompting you to upgrade your software by paying certain amount of cash in order to activate the software for your permanent use.

Where can we get the file shredder?

There are a number of sites that we can search for file shredder, or we can just google for the software that would help permanently delete those files, here are some site that I find is useful for me as well as to you.

Recommended Free File Shredder :

1) File shredder from PCworld :Click here to download

• 2) EZ File Shredder : Click to download 
• 3) More Free File Shredder : Click here to find out

According to Alyson Munroe from Microsoft home magazine: Is it impossible to retrieve your information afterward? Not 100 percent, but Lum says that unless the CIA is after you, you should be in the clear after using one of these disk-erasing tools that are available for download online.

Recommended file shredder developer sites : 

1) Active@ KillDisk :  Click to download 

• 2) Softpedia/DP Wiper : Click to download
• 3) WipeDrive : Click to download   
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• Conclusion : 
• Always remember that : 

1. when you delete a file,personal photos that it is not permanently deleted from your smart phones and your computer system. 
2. That your normal method of deleted files and files being cleared from your recycle bin can always be recovered by using a recovery file application.
3. To permanently delete and removed your file from your computer it is always good to delete it via a file shredder application.
4. Always backup your files to external hard disk. so that file that are accidentally removed can be recovered back, it is not a smart move to install a file recovery into your laptop, always remember to backup you file regularly though this is thought to be troublesome but it is the best way to retrieved any file that has been accidentally shredded. 

I hope you all find this article useful as much as I enjoyed writing about it...