On 7/11/2011 10:30 AM, Mindless Automaton wrote:

Is there a method to permanently delete a file, rather than moving it to
the recycle bin or otherwise leaving some recoverable footprint on the HD?

I think Spybot S&D comes with a File Shredder utility for geeting rid of your porn.. I mean files.. :P

I never used it though. :o

Not sure if I'd advise using such a thing on an SSD... it may nuke recovery from the file system, but the bytes are likely still on disk, because of wear leveling.

For SSD full drive, there are usually a full disk clear utility from the manufacturer you can use.

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On 7/11/2011 3:03 PM, Dreamer wrote:

And as for NTFS, I don't know much about how it deletes files, but it's probably unlinking. The data is there, but is no longer "linked" to a directory or any other object. No idea if there's "undelete" tools for NTFS.

There are undelete utilities for NTFS drives, best to install one right after you install the OS. The free/open-source utilities work fine for this, so don't buy one.

So, hope that's a decent background on the subject. Simple shredders are easy
to find. Personally, I'd just encrypt my files with a long alphanumeric password. With a 10+ character password, it can take quite a while to break, and I've nothing to hide anyway. If you have somehing to hide, then you go to
multiple encryption schemes, thorough shredding, occasional full disk wipes, etc...

truecrypt ftw

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