In my previous post, I've shown you that a deleted file can be easily recovered if it is not securely deleted. When we are deleting a file that contains sensitive data, of course we don't want the file to be seen by other people. When we delete a file using the normal method in Windows, the file will be marked as deleted but it is actually still on the disk until the file is overwritten with a new data. Secure deletion is very important when we are dealing with deleting a private file.

Eraser is a freeware tools that allows you to perform a secure deletion when deleting a sensitive file. Eraser allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns. This will effectively remove the magnetic remnants from the hard disk making it impossible to recover the data.

How to Securely Delete Files With Eraser

1. Using Eraser is very simple. After you run Eraser, you will be presented with the simple interface of Eraser.

2. Open Windows Explorer and just click and drag the files or folders that you want to delete into Eraser window (1).

3. Deleting files using the default overwritting method is sufficient. If you are too paranoid, you can change the overwritting method. Go to Edit > Preferences > Erasing. The most secure method is Gutmann (2), but the deletion process will take longer since the data that you are deleting will be overwritten 35 times before being deleted.

4. To start deleting files with Eraser, go to Task > Run All.

Eraser is freeware and open source. Eraser is available for Windows 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Server 2008.

[Download: Eraser]