Eraser


Eraser is a secure data removal tool for Windows. It completely removes sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns.
Eraser is an advanced security tool (for Windows), which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns. Works with Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP and DOS.
Eraser is FREE software and its source code is released under GNU General Public License.

The patterns used for overwriting are based on Peter Gutmann's paper "Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory" and they are selected to effectively remove magnetic remnants from the hard drive.

Other methods include the one defined in the National Industrial Security Program Operating Manual of the US Department of Defence and overwriting with pseudorandom data. You can also define your own overwriting methods.

Top reviews from the most popular software sites and magazines confirm that Eraser is one of the best security tools available for Windows.
http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/

Now this is a real cool stuff. I tested it and found that the file doesnt even goto the windows recycle bin. I did not know how to test whether it really works and does its job! If someone can throw some light it would be great.

Comments

Anonymous said…
You can always try downloading a few file recovery tools and try recovering the data.
Techknight said…
Not if you are using Eraser or some other similar software cause they overwrite the data with random data effectively changing the data to something which cant be reerted back to original. A simple delete just removes the file pointers and not the actual file. You will still be able to retrieve the file if the disk location is not overwriten with new data. This is what recovery tools willdo recover data which still is present but no recognised by the OS. So eraser does work. Trying to recover a "erased" item will not gve the riginal but gibberish. Try it to verify.

Popular Posts