Recovering and getting rid of old files

[Ed Fenwick]

Aloha folks, I use Recuva to find files that have been deleted or those that the computer just keeps for itself. Recuva works even though it is slow. After I recover the files(mostly videos) I shred them. However the next time I go recover, the same files keep coming back! Is there a way that I can permanently remove these files?
TKS God bless Ed

 

[blert]

This is a bit old but...

File recovery apps do just that, recover files that have been deleted/"shredded". The files are never truly gone, therefore can be recovered, until you overwrite to the exact sectors that the file was stored on.

Assuming you are talking about Windows...
Extra apps to clean a hard drive are usually more work than is needed. Best way I have found to get a fresh start is to backup any files you want to keep to an external drive, then just do a fresh clean reinstall of the OS. You should be given the option to do a full wipe (write zeros across the entire drive space) but that will take time relative to the disk size. Install drivers if needed, copy over important files and reinstall important apps.
For a working rig this might take me a couple of hours. For a gaming rig it could take all day depending what games I wanted to reinstall.

 

[EddieS'04]

Ed, If I can find it. I used to know of a site for a free military grade write over shredder. Been many years, I lost my copy, but I might have it in my bookmarks.
Lord Bless

 

[Ed Fenwick]

Ed, If I can find it. I used to know of a site for a free military grade write over shredder. Been many years, I lost my copy, but I might have it in my bookmarks.
Lord Bless

Thanks Eddie, I did a search for that and found that it uses a 3 pass method. Mine uses a 7 pass method so I guess the data is safe.
thanks and the Lord does bless even when I don't deserve it. Ed