Comfy Computing Ltd

One third of hard drives bought at random carried sensitive information, according to BT and the Universirty of Swansea

Here's the link for the story from the BBC website

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8036324.stm

This does mean you should take great care. If you would like a bit more anorakky information, click read more........

Just deleting a file from you hard drive by clicking on delete does not get rid of the file. It simply places it in the "recycle bin" This is a good thing: it means stuff you have dleted in error is recoverable.

Just clicking on the "empty recyle bin" does not get rid of the data on the file, it just removes enough details for the basic operating system not to be able to see it. You would need specialist software to recover it though, but this is easy to acquire and very effective.

There are quite a few programs on the market that claim to remove- permanently- all files that you have deleted. Many of them are free and effective. Contact me for recommendations.

The article referred to is about buying a second hand disk (or a second hand computer with disks in) and there have been documented examples of people buying a "New" computer and finding that a "pre used" disk has been in it. (https://net-security.org/news.php?id=5514) So if you are getting rid of an old computer, the only safe way of destryoing your data is to get a pick axe to it. Of course, your data might not have anything more sensitive than your aunty's phone number, so the whole thing may br overkill: that's for you to decide.