Windows special feature: Permanently delete data.

Hello, everyone! My name is Soorya, and this is my first post on this blog. I hope to become a vital part of this contribution to the technological world!

This post will tell you how you can use the Command Prompt on Windows to securely erase data.

If you didn't know this already... When you click on a file in Windows, and press the 'delete' key, it doesn't actually get erased. Windows simply frees up that memory block to allow other applications, or programs, to write to that memory block. Until something else re-writes it, though... The data that you "erased" is still there.

So, a "deleted-program-recovery-software" would try to read whatever is in those 'free' memory blocks. If an entire file exists, then it will try to recover it by copying it to some other location.

Now, to avoid such a scenario, there is a utility in Command Prompt that we can use.

Launch command prompt, and type in the following command.

cipher /w:X (where X is the letter of the drive, partition, or flash drive - that's a USB drive - you want to wipe clean).

Caution: This process can take a lot of time, if you have a lot of free space.

Use it well!

Coming soon: Another way to protect and secure data. A sophisticated encryption / decryption algorithm.