The title of the post may seem wrong or odd to most of you. The title is correct and I am talking about other side of story of data security. Any deleted data over your hard disk can be recovered using specialised applications even if your hard disk is not working or you have deleted it from your hard disk including Recycle Bin. The risks are more if you take the system for repair to your local computer technician or you leave it unsecured or you sold your PC to someone etc.

So how to make deleted files and folders unrecoverable ? It can be done by overwriting all free space on your hard disk(s) that contain fragments of deleted files with the random data to avoid any possibility of recovery. You may ask how to do this? Well, a small FREE application called “Prevent Restore” will help you do that.

It uses several security algorithms (DoD 5220.22, Gutmann you can replace deleted data with random characters, digits, spaces e.t.c.). While writing Prevent Restore fills out information to the end of each cluster, leaving no chance to restore even just one word!

The concept of doing something like this is new for me. I never thought about this if it can be done in someway like this. As the possibility of restoring a overwritten data is bleak , it looks like a great tool for everyone. As WikiPedia talks about same here :

“Since 1996 …there’s no practical evidence that overwritten data can be recovered. Moreover, there are good reasons to think that it cannot.”

Prevent Restore makes unrecoverable temporary files, cached files, logs e.t.c. which were also previously deleted. It does offer a paid version but I was not able to differentiate the features.

Download Prevent Restore Free Version.

Just give it a try. I would love to hear everyones opinion on this.