I get this question often on forums and from some friends, who want to erase their sensitive data which they might have stored on their work computer and now want to get rid of it, they might want to get rid of encrypted files, internet cachse, their paging file and few others things. Ofcourse normally we thing that we delete a file and it's gone, but that's not the case, the deleted data might still be on your hard disk and is recoverable.
There are few commercial software that does the work of erasing sensitive information on a hard disk, but I allways prefer a quality software product which is free of charge (bet most of us do and I understand that developers need money, and if the software is good enough, then I can allways go back and send them some money as a appreciation). I came across a software that is called 'Eraser' and is a FREEWARE. The features of this software are as follows:-
 Works with Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP and DOS. It works with any drive including IDE, SCSI and RAID. |
| Uses the Guttmann (Default), Pseudorandom Data and US DoD 5220-22.M methods. |
| Erases Files and Folders. |
| Erases all hard drives using 'Darik's Boot and Nuke' method. |
| Erases Index.dat on Reboot |
| Erases Encrypted Files and Drives. |
| Erases FreeSpace on 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP and DOS. |
| Erases contents of the Recycle Bin. |
| Erases Compressed Files and Drives. |
| Erases Network Files, Floppy Disks, CD-RW, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW. |
| Erases Windows Temporary Files. |
| Erases Internet Cookies. |
| Erases Paging (swap) file. |
| Erases Internet Cache. |
| Appears as an 'Erase' option on the Context Menu of Windows Explorer and Recycle Bin. |
| Comes with an Eraser Scheduler that allows you to create user-defined tasks. |
| Defeats File Recovery software applications Hardware tools. |
| Supports FAT32 and NTFS Files Systems. |
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Eraser is easy to use and comes with a dedicated support network.
and can be downloadable from here.
Tejas Patel |