Basically I want to start off on a clean slate.

For quite some time I've illegaly downloaded music, movies and other files.

Recently I decided I wanted to stop, delete what I downloaded and remove anything that shows they existed.

Can CCleaner remove these things so that they can never be found?

For quite some time I've illegaly downloaded music, movies and other files.

Recently I decided I wanted to stop, delete what I downloaded and remove anything that shows they existed.

Can CCleaner remove these things so that they can never be found?

Not really, try Eraser instead and use the 35 times overwrite method if your feeling particualarly paranoid (this will take some time though). Erase the files with it and then erase free space, but be aware if you have a lot of free disk space, and use the 35x overwrite method, it will take a good few hours.

Why don't you just wipe clean, and reformat? Maybe eraser will do the same thing.....good luck.

For quite some time I've illegaly downloaded music, movies and other files.

Can CCleaner remove these things so that they can never be found?

I know thia sounds obvious, but how about chucking the hard drive in the nearest river ?!

They are so cheap now !

As JDPower said, try Eraser - but I don't think this will help much.

Personally, i'd chuck it over the side of the Staten Island ferry

lol

DBAN is one option (DBAN means Darik's Boot and Nuke, Darik being the author).

dban.sourceforge.net

It is bundled with Eraser, but is also available as a standalone program from the above link. Version 1.0.7 is the latest release.

It wipes the entire hard drive - literally everything. I use it about once every 6 months prior to doing a reformat and reinstall.

However, and it is a BIG WARNING, it isn't to be messed with as once you start to run it it will wipe the partitions on the disk, as well as everything on those partitions. You need to ensure that you are able to boot and reinstall the Operating System. In other words, don't do use DBAN unless you are confident of what you are doing. And make sure you back up everything first!

I know thia sounds obvious, but how about chucking the hard drive in the nearest river ?!

They are so cheap now !

As JDPower said, try Eraser - but I don't think this will help much.

Personally, i'd chuck it over the side of the Staten Island ferry

lol

Well, I don't care about it enough to destroy it and replace it. I don't plan to do anything to get cought, I just wanted to see if CCleaner would be able to remove it since I already had the program on my computer.

I have been considering a reformat though, computer is getting overloaded with s**t anyways.

Thanks for the suggestions though. If anybody has any more I'd like to hear them.

in general terms, the safest Harddisk is the one that doesn?t exist...

prosecutors might not be that much interested in your individual case - for your own luck...

Oliver