Why Deleted Files Can Be Recovered, and How

Before you sell or hand over your computer to someone else, make sure that the data you delete is completely gone.

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Windows Reset and Recovery Image Creation

 

 

Many users take care to delete all their data when they sell their computers. Formatting the system is very important , especially if the computer to be sold contains private and sensitive information . However, simply clearing files from the Recycle bin does not mean that the deleted files are completely gone .

If you don’t have an internal SSD with TRIM turned on, it’s likely that the data you’ve deleted will be marked as “erased” by your hard drive and can be recycled until any data is overwritten on the erased region.

A similar situation applies to USB sticks and external portable disks. This means that it takes more than formatting to completely destroy the data you have deleted.

destroying data in windows 8

Windows 8, with its system reset feature, ensures that data can be completely destroyed. For this, it is necessary to enter the Update and recovery tab in the PC settings and start the “Remove everything and restore Windows” process under the Recovery section.

 After starting this process, if the option to completely delete the data is selected from the two options offered, the system will destroy all data.

destroying data in windows 7

Since Windows 7 lacks the reset option that Windows 8 has, you will need to seek help from third-party applications before formatting the system. Darik’s Boot and Nuke (DBAN) , the most well-known tool in this regard, will do the trick.

Boot the system with this disk by uploading the DBAN files you will download from this address to the CD or DVD. From the blue-white menu that will appear, select the disk you want to erase and press the M key. 

Select one of the deletion methods in the list (DoD Short as an example) and press the F10 key to start the process.

Note : This process can take long hours.

Cleaning external memory

Cleaning USB sticks and portable disks is relatively easy. All you have to do is right-click the disk and click Format. After a quick format, the files on the disk will be cleared.

Cleaning or deleted up free space on freshly installed OS

If you’ve just installed the operating system, you probably won’t want to deal with the above processes again. Instead, you can choose to clear free space left over from the previous operating system.

CCleaner ‘s Drive Cleaner feature is the appropriate method for this job. Data marked as “deleted” by the hard drive can be completely destroyed by going over the free spaces on your system again. However, this method will not be as effective as resetting the system completely.

After all the processes are completed, you can check whether there is any data that can be recovered by doing a wide scan with the application called Recuva .