hey Eric tell your friend to download a program called Puffer (there are lots of programs that do this, probably some that are better but thats the one that I use.) it has lots of disk cleaning options and you can select the # of times it overwrites the data with random data (the department of defense says it needs to be overwriten 7 !! times!!! to be considered safe) even if its overwritten you can still pull the data off of it but the more times you overwrite the data the harder it is to get anything off. oh yea and unless they are going to open the drive up and use some kind of electron microscope to look at the disk surface, overwriting 2x should be just fine. With this program you can select individual files to overwrite or you can have it just overwrite the free space on the drive which will help clean up stuff that has already been deleted. oh yea and the program also does great file encryption in case there is anything on there that you want to keep secure.
see ya Mike >>> "Darner" <[email protected]> 01/17/03 12:02AM >>> According to an article I just read, even reformatting the hard drive won't keep someone from getting your files; it recommended overwriting EVERY bit several times with all zeroes or all ones after reformatting. Supposedly based on a study done by someone at MIT, I believe. ******************************** Ah, found it: today's issue of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, page D1 (front page of business section, hard-copy). Here's the link: http://www.jsonline.com/bym/tech/news/jan03/110918.asp HTH! Ron ----- Original Message ----- From: "Hauptmann, Eric" <[email protected]> To: "Audi List (E-mail)" <[email protected]>; "16V-list (E-mail)" <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2003 9:32 AM Subject: [a2-16v-list] OT Computer clean up > Sorry to bug you with this, but a friend of mine asked me a question and i'm > not sure I know the answer. He has been doing some job searching while at > work (doesn't have computer at home) and wants to make sure everything is > cleaned out because his network guys are going to do some work on his > computer and he doesn't want anyone to know. I told him to first delete his > temporary internet files, cookies and the index.dat file but is there > anything else? I've heard that these files can be retrieved even after > deleted, is this true? Normally I would say just delete and you will be > safe, but he works for the Government and I guess they are getting more > strict about what you can and cannot do on your computer and supposedly > they're trying to "clean up" the computers. > > Anyway, thanks for the help. > > Eric > _______________________________________________ > a2-16v-list mailing list > [email protected] > http://mail.a2-16v.com/mailman/listinfo/a2-16v-list > For list archives, see listinfo link above. > > _______________________________________________ a2-16v-list mailing list [email protected] http://mail.a2-16v.com/mailman/listinfo/a2-16v-list For list archives, see listinfo link above.
