How to ensure no data trail

[stealth2009]

I have to turn over a laptop. What's the best way to ensure that confidential files I deleted are irrecoverable. The unit should not be formatted.

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[mechBgon]

The best way is to remove the hard drive and physically destroy it.

The next-best way is to run DBAN on it a few times.

If neither of those are options, you could empty the Recycle Bin and then run the command cipher /w:C:\ to overwrite all "blank" area on the HDD with three layers of EFS-encrypted junk data, possibly a couple runs. This can take a while. On a fast HDD, it's about 1 minute per GB.

The cipher command is not available on WinXP Home Edition, btw.

 

[kingtas]

I think Macafee had a utility that will run zeros over deleted files to gov specs.

EDIT: Just reading that defraging after deleting files isn't a good way of overwriting these files.

 

[Tegeril]

Killdisk is also a good option ( www.killdisk.com )

 

[Pwnbroker]

Western Digital has a utlity to do a "government wipe" of hard drives, and I would assume any other hard drive manufacturer would too.