On 18 Nov 2002, at 13:38, Robert Citkowitz wrote:

> Someone reported that after deleting files, defrag will safely remove all
> traces, but . I doubt it. Is this true?
>
> Rob

  Defrag will move stuff around, and may rewrite current data files over
space previously occupied by files that have been deleted.

  BUT

(a) There is no guarantee that it will do so.

(b) Note that a "government wipe" rewrites each part of the disk space
several times.  Defrag is likely to do it no more than twice.  So the kind
of trace analysis equipment some labs have access to will probably still be
able to reconstruct the old data.

  So the answer, basically, is "No, it's not true."

David Gillett

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