Best File Shredder Software?

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Wed Sep 18, 2002 3:13 pm

we will probably be replacing whole pcs or at least a fair number of hdd's at work and will be donating/selling the old stuff - i will really need to scrub the drives b/c we keep confidential info on them - anyone got any recommendations for cleaning programs?

TIA

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Wed Sep 18, 2002 5:59 pm

Well I would think if you used the low-level option on the manufacturer's utility to write zeros to all sectors that should pretty much eliminate the data.

If you want to be paranoid, do it 3 times to each drive (I've heard that some disk recovery utilities can recover it if you do it only once).

Someone else around here mentioned this in another post - hopefully he'll chime in.

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Wed Sep 18, 2002 8:05 pm

these are all HP office machines with different brands of HD's - i want something that is fire and forget - i'll check around some of the software sites - i know a lot of the "internet privacy" programs have this kind of feature but i don't need all that other stuff

d_b · Post by **d_b** » Wed Sep 18, 2002 8:19 pm

Might this be what you are looking for? I have no idea how good it is but it's free.

Busby · Post by **Busby** » Wed Sep 18, 2002 9:14 pm

A magnet works

I believe that Partition Magic has a feature to shred the data. Powerquest probably has an utility to use to do that type of stuff.

PreDatoR · Post by **PreDatoR** » Wed Sep 18, 2002 10:32 pm

I've used a program called Wipe It.... This was like 3 years ago though. I did its job... We had to test it and couldn't pull up any data with just running it once.

two slow · Post by **two slow** » Thu Sep 19, 2002 2:48 am

Toward the bottom of this page is something called wipe out. I haven't used it but everything I have from this site has been excellent.

WIPE OUT : as the name implies, this utility will absolutely WIPE your hard drive. For those times when an industrial strength cleaner is needed to remove any pesky files Fdisk may have left behind. A readme file is included in the zip file. WARNING...WIPE OUT will remove ALL data from the Hard Drive.

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Thu Sep 19, 2002 5:19 am

thanks all - i've downloaded some of the recommended ones as well as the commercial product from mcaffee - i'll report back after i've had a chance to check them out

matt719 · Post by **matt719** » Thu Sep 19, 2002 9:14 pm

You might try Eraser. It rigths over the drive 3 times... no way anything will be ther for long... It does take a while seeing as it write over 3 times, but it's great for docs. you can get it here:

http://download.com.com/3000-2092-85049 ... ag=lst-0-1