How do I access my computers history on the hard-drive so that I can check what my family have been doing?

Question

They go to the history and they delete it and everything, like the cookies, and doesthis get rid of it completely, or is it all still saved on the harddrive? If it really is all gone, then I would like some suggestions on monitoring software so I can see what they get up to from now on. If you can get rid of it just by deleting the history like that, then how do the police catch the paedophiles?

Answer 1

it would depend on your configuration if/ how complicated it would be....bottom line, if you don't trust your family, password protect the account so they can't get on the pc

Answer 2

I am guessing that you mean the browser history. When you clear the browser history, what happen is that the files in the cache directory are deleted and some tee browser history files are replaced with empty files.
The cache files are copies of webpages, graphics, mp3 files that are used by the webpages and are held on the hard drive so they don't have to be reloaded every time you go back to a homepage.
The history files are lists of webpage url's. there is usually a visited history, a typed-in history, and a download history, The browser uses these to save you some typing.
Cookies are set by various webpages and are used to identify session and user info.

Most browsers keep cookies in a cookie file and histories in seperate history files. internet explorer creates a seperate file for each link.
The catch here is that Microsoft operationg systems done actually delete files. what they do is mark the directory entry and is associated disk locations as available for reuse. There are a few undelete utilities that can check the marked entries and if the disk locations have not been reused, allow you to recover many deleted files.
Linux and MacOSX on the other hand use a different way of keeping up with disk usage that removes the directory entry and its associated pointer to the disk locations, The net effect being that the delete function on these OSes make it much more difficult to locate.
There are also secure-erase or shredder programs that over write the original data with randome garbage, then clear the directory entry. This makes an undelete utility useless, but the police have hard drive forensics that can get around this. They can disassembly the drive in clean-room conditions, place the disk platters into a special reader that has more precise positioning than the original drive, and reconstruct data that was over writtten.
If you really want to know what the are doing, install a keylogger.

Answer 3

You might be able to recover the files that were deleted.

If you don't trust them, don't let them on the computer unattended or at all. Install some monitoring/control software on the computer or better yet put a proxy type server between that computer and the internet and you'll see what they are/trying to do.

Try this for recovery...
http://officerecovery.com/freeundelete/
http://www.winundelete.com/
these may give you some ideas on what types of files are being deleted from the Internet Temporary files.... maybe even some thumbnails of pictures.

Good Luck

Answer 4

You can press control and h. Thats where the history for internet explorer or your internet browser is.

Answer 5

control panel and manage your computer and go to process view and performent use to check where they go