Deleting files or placing files in the Recycle Bin does not destroy them. They are no longer reported as taking up space on your hard drive but they can be recovered with the right program until they are overwritten by other information (Recovery is not simple but possible - not for novice users).
Reformatting your hard drive does not wipe existing information from your hard drive. When trashing or selling an old computer you might want to destroy personal information that you've saved during your use of it. It seems logical that reformatting the hard drive should destroy that information so a new owner can't see your personal stuff. Sorry. Reformatting doesn't render your information unrecoverable. There are many programs available that will recover information from a reformatted hard drive (the usual formatting/reformatting a user does is called a high level format).
The only way to clean a hard drive and make your information unrecoverable is to run a utility program that WIPES the drive (there are companies specializing in hard drive destruction for
drives that hold really sensitive information). A program that WIPES doesn't actually erase your old information; it overwrites your old information with a series of zeros so that your information is unreadable. Most hard drive makers offer free utility programs which you can download from their websites; one of the utilities is a program called a Low Level Format.
One aspect of the LLF program is that it WIPES your hard drive with zeros. I ran a LLF on a 40 Gb Maxtor recently. It took about four hours and the drive is now clean as new (all hard drives are low level formatted at the factory under controlled conditions; user's LLF is not as extensive but adequate for what users need).
Norton also has a program for WIPING files and folders. I have it bundled with my Norton System Works. You can select programs or files that you want to make unrecoverable and Norton does the job. I've used Norton Wipe on several shareware programs that I didn't want to keep and Norton overwrote them quickly.
I recently had a hard drive going bad. Both Norton and Windows reported that the drive had bad sectors and both programs insisted on doing a surface scan. During a surface scan, the program tests each sector for read/write capabilities and when it finds a sector that doesn't cooperate, it moves existing information to another sector and marks the BAD sector so it won't be used again.
That's good. But there is an aspect of doing a surface scan which you should be warned about: it can take hours and hours. Don't start a surface scan thinking it'll take a few minutes. The last one I did took seven and a half hours on a 30 Gb drive. Just be prepared for a long wait. If after doing a surface scan and using your drive for a while, you continue to get the warning message, let that be your dire warning because that drive is no longer dependable. Your drive and data are about to say bye, bye. Back up your stuff before it's too late. How to backup? Read on.
Protect Your Data
I do this in two steps. For files such as photos, music and other data that isn't subject to change in the future, I keep a copy on a CD-RW.. Then, I clone my drive.
I've recovered many computers from crashes in the past so I know what it is to lose everything. Reinstalling the operating system and other software can take hours; adding software updates from the Internet can take more hours; adding your backup files from your saved CD's can take more hours; getting all your settings the way you had them can take more hours. After you reassemble all your files and programs, you'll still remember things you've lost forever. So.
I use Norton Ghost to clone my hard drives. It's cheap enough to purchase a backup hard drive and CLONE your entire hard drive as often as you wish. Every two to four weeks is often enough for me. Meanwhile, I copy any individual files to CD-RW for safe keeping.
Cloning my drive saves ALL my data as it is at that moment. That might take a half hour (if all goes well) including
connecting and disconnecting the standby drive. Believe me, it's worth every minute.
