I have run CCleaner several times on my Win XP Hewlett Packard desktop.
I wanted to make sure deleted files were truly gone, so I ran Recuva. LOTS of files were restored to a plugin hard drive.
Why?
How do I make sure that deleted files are gone?
Can I delete them from the plugin hard drive (using CCleaner) and they'll be gone forever, or are they still on the C drive of my desktop?
Thanks for any help in understanding how to use these 2 programs.
chrisw
June 14, 2010, 5:24pm
2
Recuva is just doing what it's supposed to do...recover deleted files. To truly delete them, you need a file shredder program.
Aethec
June 14, 2010, 7:21pm
3
If you use a secure file deletion (you can choose that in CCleaner's settings), it shouldn't be able to restore anything. Or only file names.
Just to expand on Aethec's advice, have a read of the CCleaner docs on Secure Deletion, and I would suggest choosing a "Simple Overwrite", which is sufficient.
http://docs.piriform.com/ccleaner/ccleaner-settings/changing-ccleaner-settings