deleting files

[Mini]

Hello all

this is my first post so bear with me.

first thing is I had an old hard drive that was fried, so i took a hard drive that was given to me and i installed window. i always firgured when you do a raw install everything is deleted and a fresh copy is installed. NOT.

After runnjng Recuva i found thousands of olf files from the prevoius user. Iwant to delete them not recover them. Do i have to recover first or can i delete them right away. Sorry im a ltttle cofused. I recovered them once a sent them to a folder on my external hard drive. and tried to delete them. on the next scan they where still there in the original drive. help please.

 

Miniatus

[davey]

Hello all

this is my first post so bear with me.

first thing is I had an old hard drive that was fried, so i took a hard drive that was given to me and i installed window. i always firgured when you do a raw install everything is deleted and a fresh copy is installed. NOT.

After runnjng Recuva i found thousands of olf files from the prevoius user. Iwant to delete them not recover them. Do i have to recover first or can i delete them right away. Sorry im a ltttle cofused. I recovered them once a sent them to a folder on my external hard drive. and tried to delete them. on the next scan they where still there in the original drive. help please.

 

Miniatus

Hello Mini,

These will help you and others.

http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=14299 How to use Recuva, Tips and hints

http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=8563 Beginner's Guide, The complete beginner's guide.

 

I assume that you used the wizard and selected "all" when needed.

Then stage1 and stage2 runs and then you are presented with a nice long listing.

You checked the box next to "filename" in the upper left=corner and this checked every box there is in the listing.

Then you right-clicked on the body of the listing and you then clicked on "Secure Delete Checked".

The overwrite then runs and runs and then you are presented with a little scroll list that shows all the files that were overwritten.

The list does not contain some files ,since they exist in an area called the "MFT".These will be removed as you use the computer.

If you run "Recuva" again you get relatively the same list as before but this time all the files have that little red icon next to the name.

All this is normal.The filenames are there but the data is overwritten.It can't be recovered in a usable state.

Changes will probably be added to even remove the filenames in the future.

For now you have done the best you can to eliminate that private data.

There are other products to do this also.Recuva has been the quickest method I have seen to do this.

 

All the above could be achieved by copying many movies and such to your drive.So the option is up to the user.

This way you know it is done and over with and done quickly.

 

You are a very considerate person to do as you have done.

Now if I can find some one to pass on to me a nice big drive I promise to do the same.

 

Glad to have a person of your caliber as a member of our forum.

You come back and learn and ask questions anytime.

davey

 

P.S. You will also want to delete the folders that you created to "recover" some files.You can use Recuva to then overwrite those also.

Just keep in mind that when you "recover" files that you are creating a copy of what Recuva can find.Sometimes that data is partially usable,completely usable or not usable at all. When you "secure delete" those files the data is overwritten and unusable.

Edited June 16, 2008 by davey