PC Inspector e-maxx
Permanently delete all your files

PC INSPECTOR™ e-maxx is the new professional data deletion program from CONVAR. Using the new direct DMA support, data can be deleted from hard drives in high speed mode with speeds up to 3.3 GB per minute.
PC INSPECTOR e-maxx is sponsored
Win 98/Me/NT/2000/XP

Active@ Kill Disk
Hard Drive Eraser

Active@ KillDisk - Hard Drive Eraser is powerful and compact DOS software that allows you to destroy all data on hard and floppy drives completely, excluding any possibility of future recovery of deleted files and folders. It's a hard drive and partition eraser utility.
If you use FDISK, FORMAT utilities, or DELETE standard operating system command for data removal, there is always a chance to recover deleted data (using undelete file or some data recovery software) and use against the owner's will. We highly recommend you to run this FREE utility for the hard and floppy drives you want to dispose of, recycle, re-use, sell or donate to somebody.

Last Updated 28 January 2008
Win 98/ME/NT/2000/XP

Eraser
Secure file deletion

Eraser is an advanced security tool (for Windows), which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns.
The patterns used for overwriting are based on Peter Gutmann's paper "Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory" and they are selected to effectively remove magnetic remnants from the hard drive.
Win 98/ME/NT/2000/XP

AnalogX SuperShredder
Secure file deletion

When you delete a file from your system (and remove it from your Recycle Bin) the contents can still be retrieved by someone who is knows what they're doing - they can even potentially recover data that's been overwritten! Now this doesn't really matter if you're just deleting some unused Word documents, but if you deal with sensitive data such as encrypted information, then it's VERY important that these files be securely deleted... That's where AnalogX SuperShredder comes in!
SuperShredder gives you the ability to delete files using not only common methods such as Gutmann and NISPOM (DoD), but can be completely customized to give you all the security and/or performance you may need. It can receive files via drag-and-drop onto the application or the icon, selecting files from inside the program, command line, and can even add a shortcut to your 'Send To' menu inside the Windows Explorer so it's simple to delete files in a secure and convenient fashion.
Win 98/ME/2000/XP

AbsoluteShield File Shredder
Secure file shredding

AbsoluteShield File Shredder let you permanently remove files and folders from your system easily without the possibility of data recovery. The tool is integrated with the Windows shell and you can directly start shredding by right-clicking on the selected folders/files and selecting "AbsoluteShield File Shredder" from the Windows explorer menu. The program allows you to choose between a quick two-pass or the standard seven-pass file wiping method.
Windows does not physically remove deleted files from your hard disk. Emptying your Recycle Bin does NOT protect you at all. Your sensitive files can be recovered, even after you format your hard disk! When you delete a file from Windows, the OS just marks the file as deleted in the file allocation table, but the data of the file is still on your hard disk. There are many tools available which can let others easily recover your sensitive files even after you format your hard disk.
Win 98/Me/2000/XP

Sysinternals SDelete

SDelete is a command line utility that takes a number of options. In any given use, it allows you to delete one or more files and/or directories, or to cleanse the free space on a logical disk. SDelete accepts wild card characters as part of the directory or file specifier.

Note:
Sysinternals is now part of Microsoft
Win 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP

Darik's Boot and Nuke
Secure hard drive erasure

Darik's Boot and Nuke ("DBAN") is a self-contained boot floppy that securely wipes the hard disks of most computers. DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect, which makes it an appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction.
Win 98/Me/NT/2000/XP

Pandora Recover
Find and Recover Deleted Files of Any Type

Pandora Recovery is a powerful free tool that provides its users an effective way to attempt recovery of permanently deleted files. And that does not mean restoration of a file from Recycle Bin. Pandora Recovery actually recovers files permanently removed from Recycle Bin, files originally deleted using Shift + Delete keys bypassing Recycle Bin and files deleted from DOS prompt.

Pandora Recovery is not a backup tool - it can recover files that have been deleted months before Pandora Recovery was installed. And while the likelihood of successful recovery is negatively affected by the time passed since the deletion of files Pandora Recovery users were able to recover files deleted more than five years after deletion!

When you delete a file on FAT32 or NTFS file system, its content is not erased from disk but only reference to file data in File Allocation Table or Master File Table is marked as deleted. It means that you might be able to recover deleted files, or make it visible for file system again.

Pandora Recovery allows you to find and recover recoverable deleted files from NTFS-formatted volumes, regardless of their type - you can recover pictures, songs, movies or documents. Pandora Recovery will scan your hard drive and build an index of existing and deleted files and directories (folders) on any logical drive of your computer with supported file format. Once the scanning is complete you have full control over which files to recover and what destination to recover them to. You can BROWSE the hierarchy of existing and deleted files, or you can use SEARCH functionality to find a deleted file if you remember at least one of the following:
- full or partial file name,
- file size,
- file creation date, or
- file last accessed date

On top of that, Pandora Recovery allows you to preview deleted files of certain type (images and text files) without performing recovery. This feature becomes really important if you are forced to recover deleted files to the same drive. Currently you can preview files having several image file types (BMP, GIF, JPG, PNG, ICO,TIF, TGA, PCX, WBMP, WMF, JP2, J2K, JBG, JPC, PGX, PNM, RAS, CUR) and several text file types (TXT, LOG, INI, BAT, RTF, XML, CSS). Quick Viewer allows you preview file contents as text if it cannot find appropriate viewer for it. To use quick viewer you can select deleted file and or click the Quick Viewer icon or right click on deleted file and select 'Quick View'. Quick View will then display a preview of deleted file
Win 2000/XP/2003/Vista

Secure Delete

We wrote this program to ensure that when we visit our clients, or they visit us, if source code needs to be installed on a computer for testing it can be removed in such a way that even if the file can be recovered, the contents are nonsense. This provides our customers with the confidence that we respect their non-disclosure agreements and provide tools to ensure this.
This program allows you to specify a directory (and optionally all subdirectories) in which all files should be deleted. When each file is deleted the contents of the file are filled with random data prior to deleting the file.
Win 98/Me/2000/XP

Photo Recovery Software
Recover images from media cards

MjM Free Photo Recovery Software will recover images that have been deleted from a memory card, or from memory cards that have been formatted.

The easy-to-use interface will automatically detect the media card in the card reader and scan it, while displaying thumbnail images of the photos that are found during the scan.
You can view each photos in full-size and recover them all or only save selected images.
During our review, we first deleted all images from the card the via Windows - the program found and recovered all of them.
We then formatted the card in the camera and restarted the search - and again it found them all (recovery results after formatting may vary depending on the formatting method used by the camera). Works with Compact Flash, SmartMedia, Memory Sticks and other media storage cards.
Win 98/ME/2000/XP

Undelete Plus
Recover deleted files

Undelete Plus is a quick and effective way to retrieve accidentally deleted files, files removed from the Recycle Bin, in a DOS window, from a network drive, from Windows Explorer with the SHIFT key held down.

The program supports all Windows file systems for hard and floppy drives including FAT12/16/32,NTFS/NTFS5 and image recovery from CompactFlash, SmartMedia, MultiMedia and Secure Digital cards.

Undelete Plus allows the following tasks to be performed:
- Recovery of deleted files from NTFS/NTFS5, FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 volumes.

Last Updated 13 March 2008
Win 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003

CD Recovery Toolbox Free
Recover files from scratched CDs

CD Recovery Toolbox (download) tool was developed for recovering damaged files from different disk types: CD, DVD, HD DVD, Blu-Ray, etc.
You can use it to restore information lost as a result of some mechanical damage of the disk (scratches, chips, different spots on the surface) or as a result of incorrect recording. Thus, the program can recover data that was considered lost.

The CD Recovery Toolbox Free tool scans any CD and DVD disks and finds files and folders located there. We should mention that there can be some information on the disk that cannot be recovered. Not all of the files and folders can be found – that depends on the degree and location of the damage.

Therefore, the CD Recovery Toolbox Free tool finds the possible maximum amount of information. After that, it shows a list of all files and folders available for recovery. Now the user can select the files and folders to be recovered. Those specific objects will be recovered while the others will be ignored. The program recovers the maximum amount of information in the damaged file. This reduces the risk of data loss considerably.
Win 98/ME/2000/XP/2003/Vista

Hard Disk Scrubber 2.0

Hard Disk Scrubber is a program that overwrites all free
space on a hard disk so that it may not be un-deleted.
This will also securely delete files on your system so
that they may not be recovered.
Win 95/98/Me/2000/XP

Trend Micro CoolWebShredder

CoolWebShredder (CWShredder) will find and destroy all traces of CoolWebSearch on your system. This includes redirections or hijacking to www.coolwwwsearch.com and coolwebsearch.com, youfindall.net and white-pages.ws. If you find that your browser is sending you to these sites all of a sudden, this little program will take care of it.
Win 98/Me/2000/XP

Sure Delete 5.1.0

Sure Delete offers two utilities that work to permanently delete data from a hard drive. When you need to shred sensitive information, Sure Delete ensures that it's done right. Rather than simply deleting file references on your computer, the program actually destroys the data itself. Sure Delete goes much further than the Windows Recycle Bin, and ultimately makes the data irretrievable. Best of all, the process is virtually effortless. Sure Delete offers a wizard-style interface that guides you through the process of deleting files. You'll have a clean, secure, evidence free hard drive in a matter of minutes. Sure Delete supports the FAT12, FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS disk formats.
Win 95/98/Me/2000/XP