What?
2007-06-29 02:35:39 · 8 answers · asked by Anonymous in Computers & Internet ➔ Software
Because someone (like me) could get ahold of your old hard drive and recover the vast majority of anything you've deleted if it's not overwritten a few times.
File shredders don't make it impossible to recover, just much much harder.
2007-06-29 02:40:39 · answer #1 · answered by tigerkitty2 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A file shredder will permanently delete private and sensitive materials including but is not limited to downloaded bank statements, mortgage information, or any other information that you do not want anyone to know about.
A good program to use for a file shredder is CCleaner. Not only does it shred files, but will check the registry files and fix them, delete temp files, and any unused files within the registry. This is useful because it will increase your computers speed.
2007-06-29 09:42:38 · answer #2 · answered by Brendan J 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
So no-one else can retrieve your data from your PC's disk when you sell or scrap it.
When you delete a file, all you delete is the marker that points to where the file is... the file isn't destroyed until the space is reused... so you can undelete files from a wiped disk drive. A shredder overwrites the files in-place before deleting them so the data on the disk is meaningless.
2007-06-29 09:40:25 · answer #3 · answered by bambamitsdead 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
When you delete a file all that happens is that it's "space" on the HDD is marked as available. At some point your file system will over write that spot on the HDD, until that occurs the file is still there. Someone with the correct HDD utilities could still read the file off the HDD.
You can de-frag your HDD, which may over write available file space during the de-frag process, but it may not hit every spot.
2007-06-29 09:42:07 · answer #4 · answered by Fester Frump 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If you delete a file, it stays on your hard drive until overwritten. If you want to make sure no one can ever see it, use a file shredder.
2007-06-29 09:38:46 · answer #5 · answered by tx1942txx 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
so in case you have a top-secret file, and you 100% don't want anybody to see it every again you use the file shreder, becuase some other ways people can still get the files.....
2007-06-29 09:40:15 · answer #6 · answered by bengronfors 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
So other people will not be able to get information on you or the people the documents on, believe it or not people can steal your identity just by digging through your trash.
2007-06-29 09:44:02 · answer #7 · answered by bluenile 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
They overwrite the file so that it cannot be read anymore.
2007-06-29 09:37:55 · answer #8 · answered by Yoi_55 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋