Hello,

I need to take my computer to a computer repair shop for an upgrade, and I want to erase all sensitive information on it, such as cookies, internet history, some office documents, and other things. I created a few CDs with the documents that I need ( inluding my personal photos and emails ) and now I want to erase the other files without formating the drive.

If you're using a Windows PC or Windows on a Mac, you can use this: http://summitcn.com/downloads/hdscrub21.zip

If you are using OSx you can use the delete options in Disk Utility for multiple overwrites. if you go from a second drive. ( clone run and remove , sending in a blank, or re cloning the boot drive to the freshly deleted one so as to have a functioning system. )

Most Linux installs have an available delete tool, but you'll need to search it out within your specific build.

In Windows, just delete all the files and things you don't want and empty the trash. You can remove all the programs you don't want too... Use the tool to do a secure multi rewrite of all free space, then if you want you can defrag and then clear the free space again. just don't defrag before you overwrite several times, as your data won't truly be cleansed.

For a PC it's just Tools/Internet Options in Explorer.

Delete Cookies, Delete Temp Files and Clear History are all on the first tab there.

You don't need a program to do it.

Chris

Thank you all for your suggestions. I also found Privacy Guard http://www.amicutilities.com/privacy-guard which does the job right and fast. I will try them out more and then buy one!

Well if you use XP just click start, run, type in cookies, and it will open your cookies folder.

And ANYONE can recover files. Not just computer experts. It's too simple anymore these days. Windows has built in tools to recover files.

But Firefox has the options to delete all Internet browsing history upon close... Unlike Microsoft products.

But if you don't want to do it yourself there are tools you can get.

here's one

http://www.download.com/CleanCache/3...ml?tag=lst-6-8

Another one
http://www.download.com/iISystem-Wip...ml?tag=lst-6-4

There are so many free ones! Just read and choose! GPL is good!

You can delete them in Windows...but, that won't delete the actual history. Just what the browser displays.

We've had numerous occassions at work to provide a list of websites someone has used the computer to view. I'm spacing on the name...index.DAT, maybe? There's a file that stores your whole history--whether IE shows it to you or not. There's freeware that will clear it, too.