Data Destroyer Disk Wipe 9.71

Data Destroyer Disk Wipe 9.71 is designed as a professional program that can help you to wipe an entire hard disk, memory stick, floppy disk, etc., optionally with the exception of the top-level files and the files in selected top-level folders. It is a stand-alone version of the disk purge function contained in Hermetic Systems program Data Destroyer.

To "purge" a file (on a disk or on any writeable magnetic medium) means to overwrite the data in the file many times (and then delete it) so that the data which was in the file cannot be recovered by any means. Several overwrites are required for security, since just one may leave electronic traces of the original data which can be detected by very sensitive equipment designed to do this.

If you wish to make sure that information which has been written to disk (such as financial data, company plans, proposals, etc.) can never be seen again after you remove it then you need a program with the capabilities of this one. Also, if you sell your old PC you may wish to make sure that all data is erased (permanently and irrecoverably) from the hard disk, including (for PCs running Windows 98) data in the swap file.

Beware of data removal programs that are claimed to delete files quickly. The only way data can be removed permanently is to overwrite it (on disk, not just in the disk cache) several times (not just once), and this takes time (more or less, depending on the speed of the hardware involved). Data Destroyer Disk Wipe provides an estimate of the time required to wipe a disk using a particular number of overwrites. If it seems that a particular disk wipe operation would take more time than is available, you can reduce the number of overwrites to be used, and thus the time for the disk wipe.

Major Features:

1. Data Destroyer purges data in files, where 'purge' means to destroy, to eliminate completely by overwriting, so that the data cannot be recovered by any means.
2. Data Destroyer allows you to destroy the contents of a file by overwriting it several times (or many times) with random bytes, and with bytes with alternating bit patterns, before the file is deleted (i.e., unlinked).
3. Data Destroyer can purge either: (a) a single file, (b) all files in a folder, (c) a specified subset of files in a folder, (d) all files in a folder and all files in all sub-folders of that folder, (e) a specified subset of all files in a folder and in all sub-folders of that folder, (f) all space on a disk and (g) all unused clusters on a disk.
4. This software checks for possible errors in user input, and is designed to minimize the chance of accidentally purging a file that you wish to keep.
5. Another feature of Data Destroyer is that you can get an estimate of the time required to perform a purge operation. A lengthy purge operation may require several hours, or even days, and if you did not have an accurate estimate of the time needed before beginning the operation you might get worried, not knowing how long it still has to run.
   

Enhancements: Added missing .ocx file.