We have a subscription to pcworld and I remembered they had stories about
erasing and being able to recover files from a harddrive.  Well I just went
and looked at their website.  They have a couple of those programs.  Go to
http://www.pcworld.com and click the downloads tab and then click utilities
in the subcategories below.  Check out the file management category and they
have programs for recovering accidentally deleted files.  Also I've been
looking at a program from roxio called goback for computers pre windows me
and xp that don't have system restore, it gives 95 and 98 computers system
restore, but it also allows retreiving deleted files.  (the first utilities
I gave you are mostly free though).

(on the other hand if I'm the one trying to completely erase the harddrive,
I've went to the maxtor and western digital sites and gotten utilities for
'zero write', but haven't gotten the chance to use them because my computers
haven't failed yet :).)

Bob Kupferer


>From: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: PCBUILD - Personal Computer Hardware discussion List
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] Wiping hard drive clean
>Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2003 16:53:15 -0400
>
>for those who feel insecure about donating computers with the Hard
>Drive--You may want to read this article by Larry magid at this
>link--http://www.pcanswer.com/articles/sjm_drivedump.htm
>mike michel
>------------------------------------------------------------
>
>  --- On Mon 09/29, Kenny Parks -- <[log in to unmask] > wrote:
>Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] Wiping hard drive clean
>
>Hey Group, I have the same question. How? I know there are companies that
>do this for a price. What I would like to know is that if we are giving the
>computer to a friend, church, etc. Do you really think that someone is
>going to go to the enormous expense to find out what you have in the bank?
>As a builder I wish there was a simple way to recover someones files from a
>crashed hard drive. I think the worse fear that my customers have is losing
>all their work or photos, things that cannot be replaced when their hard
>drive crashs.
>  -- Kenny
>----------------------------------------------------------------- Original
>Message --From: "Ken Shearer" 9/29/03
>Subject-- Wiping hard drive clean
>
>There's a lot of dialog out there about wiping your hard drive clean before
>giving/selling the computer to someone else. Many responses say, "running
>FDISK and simply reformatting will NOT erase the data, and it can still be
>recovered."  Okay, how?
>
>_______________________________________________
>Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com
>The most personalized portal on the Web!
>
>                   Visit our website regularly for FAQs,
>                articles, how-to's, tech tips and much more
>                           http://freepctech.com

_________________________________________________________________
High-speed Internet access as low as $29.95/month (depending on the local
service providers in your area). Click here.   https://broadband.msn.com

            Do you want to signoff PCBUILD or just change to
                    Digest mode - visit our web site:
                   http://freepctech.com/pcbuild.shtml