40. Securely erase data from your hard drive
To speed file deletion up, Windows XP merely marks the beginning of a file when you delete it, which enables other files to reside in the space taken by that old file. Until the file is overwritten, however, it's retrievable. You can bypass this problem with a free third-party app called Eraser.
Once installed, you can securely delete any file by right-clicking the file in question and choosing 'Erase'. Click 'OK' to use the default options or 'Options' to choose a different method.
If the files have already been deleted, launch Eraser and click 'On Demand', select 'File > New Task' to set up the task to wipe a drive's free space. Select the drive you wish to scrub from the drop-down menu, tick 'Keep task on the list' and click 'OK'. Right-click the task and choose 'Run'. Read the warning, click 'Yes' and prepare to wait.
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