If you want to get rid of your private files that may contain financial or sensitive data, then you have to delete them securely using tools that overwrite these files using known secure file shredding algorithms. The benefit of using these secure file erasing tools is that they make file recovery virtually impossible.
There are many tools for securely erasing your files and folders. One of such portable applications is DPShredder that works on Windows computers and offers many algorithms for secure file deletion. Since it is portable, you can do not have to install it and run it from any where including from a USB pendrive.
DPShredder allows you to securely erase both files/folders and free space. Erasing free space is necessary to make sure that even the previously deleted files are also overwritten.
In the user interface of DPShredder you have to select a file or folder that you want to erase. You can choose silent or quick-shredding modes for erasing files. Similarly, for overwriting the free space you have to choose one of the partitions that you want to work with.
In both cases (erasing folders/files or overwriting free space), you can choose the options such as number of rounds and the algorithms. Number of rounds define how many times the data is overwritten. It offers some of the standard algorithms such as zeroes, pseudorandom data, RCMP, US-DoD, and Gutmann.
You can begin the secure erasing process by clicking on the Start button in the DPShredder window for the respective functions. DPShredder thoroughly destroys all the files including their entries in the MFT on NTFS formatted partitions. For testing, we erased many files using DPShredder and could not find them again using Recuva even using the deep scan.
DPShredder also supports command line parameters and can be used in batch scripts. It comes with a “readme.txt” file that explains all the command line switches. Because of this, you can even made some entries in the Windows’ Registry and add DPShredder to the right-click context-menu to the File Explorer.
You should always securely erase your personal files using tools like DPShredder as a general practice. This ensures that whenever you give away or sell your computer or storage devices, your personal data cannot be recovered by a third-party and abused.
You can download DP Shredder from https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B19LLjk2RMjfWUJvd3NJSjYzbEk.