Killer Tech Tips

Software, Websites, Hacks You can Use

How to Shred Files In Your Hard Drive for Free?

with 17 comments

Shredding is a process of completely removing data from your hard drive. Remember – even if you delete files from your hard disk, the data still remains in the hard disk and could potentially be recovered.

If you’re going to sell your computer’s hard drive, you probably need to shred the files present there because you might have stored sensitive information on there earlier and wouldn’t want anyone to get access to it.

Eraser is a wonderful free files shredder that could do the job of shredding files on your hard drive. You can download it from this page. Here’s a quick how to on how you can use Eraser to shred files in your hard drive easily:

  1. Launch Eraser by clicking on the icon on your desktop
  2. In the Eraser window menu bar, choose File > New Task

  3. To perform file shredding on the free space of your hard drive, leave the first option selected and choose the drive where the shredding should happen
  4. To shred specific folders, select the second option and choose the folders whose files need to be shredded. If you want the files in the selected folder’s subfolders to be shredded too, check the Subfolders option
  5. To shred a particular file, select the third option and browse through to select the file that should be shredded

  6. Click OK
  7. You should see a new task listed in the Eraser window
  8. Now select the task and click the Run icon from the Eraser toolbar. Otherwise, press Ctrl+R

  9. The selected shredding operation will now happen
  10. Alternatively, you can shred files/folders from within Windows Explorer itself by right clicking and choosing Erase.

Hope you found this how to on shredding files on your hard drive helpful. If you’ve got any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments.

Related posts:

  1. How to Backup and Restore Contacts, Files and Other Settings from your Nokia Mobile Phone?
  2. How to convert files to PDF using OpenOffice?
  3. How to Automatically Update Your iTunes Library?
  4. Burn .ISO files in Windows 7
  5. Preview Zip Files Before Downloading With ArchView

Written by Shankar Ganesh

May 29th, 2008 at 1:30 pm

Posted in how to

Tagged with ,

« Search Muxtape with MuxFind
How to Automatically Update Your iTunes Library? »

17 Responses to 'How to Shred Files In Your Hard Drive for Free?'

Subscribe to comments with RSS or TrackBack to 'How to Shred Files In Your Hard Drive for Free?'.

  1. Thiz is nice tool :)

    Siddharth

    29 May 08 at 3:41 pm

  2. For selling a hard drive, I personally would just reformat the drive to a different file system.

    Jake

    30 May 08 at 1:57 am

  3. I have yet to ever need to do this, but if I ever do, I will certainly remember this post! Thanks

    Aseem Kishore

    30 May 08 at 5:15 am

  4. @Siddharth Thanks for dropping by.
    @Jake That’s a good tip!
    @Aseem You’re welcome.

    Shankar Ganesh

    30 May 08 at 8:31 am

  5. [...] delete your files, or “shred” them  before handing your PC to someone else. This blog post illustrates one of such utilities. Technorati Tags: deleting computer [...]

    How to completely delete files from your hard disk | The How To Do Things Blog

    31 May 08 at 12:07 am

  6. [...] How to Shred Files In Your Hard Drive for Free? [...]

    Weekly Links: May 30, 2008 : LostInTechnology

    31 May 08 at 2:07 am

  7. [...] How to Shred Files in your Hard Drive for Free? – Delete the contents without a trace even after you shift delete. [...]

    Link Bytes #9

    31 May 08 at 7:18 am

  8. [...] How to Shred Files In Your Hard Drive for Free? by Shankar [...]

    Technology Talk 31/5/2008

    31 May 08 at 11:12 pm

  9. looks like a good tool…any idea on what does it do while deleting a file so that it should not be recoverable at all.

    some thing like overwriting those sectors with some junk values?

    abhsihek

    1 Jun 08 at 12:56 am

  10. [...] How to Shred Files In Your Hard Drive for Free? – KillerTechTips [...]

    Best of Tech Blogs: May 2008

    1 Jun 08 at 8:27 pm

  11. [...] If you are planning to sell or give away your Hard Disk, then do read this post by Shankar which tells you how to shred files in your Hard Drive [...]

    Super Sunday Links Episode 9 : Madhur Kapoor’s Blog

    2 Jun 08 at 1:02 am

  12. Hey, this is ace!! Much better than buying a product to do it

    Elliot

    Btw, like the redesign – think its good! :D

    Elliot

    2 Jun 08 at 2:07 am

  13. @Abhishek: Yep, I think it overwrites over previously written data. The methods are described in the Help file of the program.
    @Elliot: Thanks Elliot, a major redesign is underway ;)

    Shankar Ganesh

    2 Jun 08 at 10:14 am

  14. Can anybody tell me how to recover the deleted data from hard drive, Please dont tell me any tools , just tell me how to do this, I have knoweledge in C, Assembly language and little bit of VB
    Can i program to recover deleted data from Hard drive

    Bikash

    2 Jun 08 at 3:17 pm

  15. Bikash
    to recover deleted files, google search for a program called Recuva

    this will recover your deleted files

    Guy

    14 Jun 08 at 9:39 pm

  16. [...] – bookmarked by 5 members originally found by lechatnoir on 2008-10-31 How to Shred Files In Your Hard Drive for Free? http://www.killertechtips.com/2008/05/29/how-to-shred-files-in-your-hard-drive-for-free/ – [...]

    Bookmarks about Shred

    9 Dec 08 at 8:30 pm

  17. revo uninstaller might be the alternative

    prajesh

    3 Feb 09 at 1:56 pm

Leave a Reply