TechTips - Got Data that Needs to Be Erased? Do it with BCWipe

Data, that important thing that you store virtually everywhere on your PC, can be a tricky monster to deal with when you want to get rid of that old PC. You don't want anyone to see what you have or had on your PC and it's easier than most people think to recover files that were just deleted using the delete key. You need a program that will not only delete the file, but also overwrite the file several times, making it un-recoverable. In the past such programs were costly, but now you can get one virtually free.

The program I suggest is called BCWipe. You can get a copy of it here.

First I want to explain how deleting files basically works in most operating systems (like Windows). Say you delete a file off your computer, either using shift + delete (supposedly removed forever) or you send it to your recycle bin and then empty it. You didn't really delete the file per say, but the reference to the location of that file. I know it's a bit confusing but with the right knowledge and programs someone could potentially recover your deleted files.

So in order to make sure they are gone forever you need a program that deletes the file and then write data (1's and 0's) over that file reference location several times, making it impossible to recover. This is where BCWipe comes into the picture. BCWipe is a military grade data wiping tool that is easy to use with a well thought-out interface that any user can understand and use. This simple to use guide will give you a basic understanding of the program and allow you to start wiping files, folders, or your entire drive in just minutes.

First you will want to download and install the program from the link provided above, when installing just choose all the defaults. After you are finished installing find the program in your Start menu and run the BCWipe Task Manager. Once its open you will see how simple the interface is, only a few options are available but don't let it fool you this program is very powerful and next we will learn how to delete just a file.

To delete just a single file click on the Tasks options, move your cursor over the "create new task" option and it will give you 4 additional options, you will want to choose Delete with wiping. There are three tabs and it will start you in the Schedule tab, you can use this tab to schedule a time to do the wiping if you want to just set it and forget it for a later date and time. I just leave these at the defaults and then click on the wipe options tab. In this tab you can set a few different types of options for wiping the file. The defaults will wipe the file and overwrite it 7 times, making it impossible to recover. You can make changes as you need here but the defaults will do just fine. The most important tab is the Delete with wiping tab, here is where we will choose our file that we want to wipe. In this tab you will see two buttons, Add file and Add folder, this is self explanatory you can either add just one file or you can add an entire folder to be wiped, for our example we will just add a single file, so you can click on Add file. Now you simply have to browse to the file you want deleted and open it. Click OK and now you will see the task in the main window of the BCWipe task manager. You can right click on the task and choose Start Task Now; this will run the task and wipe the file. Since its going to write data over the file 7 times it takes some time. For a single file it will probably only be about 3-7 minutes but if you are doing a lot of data it can take hours or even days, depending on the amount.

Now that you know how to delete a single file, I want to explain another function of the BCWipe program that can come in handy. Say you have deleted a lot of files from your PC, like I said before you haven't really removed these from your PC you only deleted a reference to them. A simple program can restore a lot of these erased files, but there is a way to make them un-recoverable using BCWipe. Click the Tasks option, and then click Create new task, and finally click wipe free space. Again you have the three tabs, Schedule, Wipe options and now wipe free space. What this does for you is it will over write all of the free space on your hard drive with 1's and 0's just like we over wrote the file with 1's and 0's. This makes sure that any file that was deleted using the delete key or recycle bin is gone forever. Now this can take a long time, its going to write over all free space on your hard drive, mine is a 320GB hard drive with 220GB free. This could take hours; just keep that in mind when you are doing one of these wipes.

Once BCWipe is done you can feel secure that there is no way for anyone to recover any deleted data from your free space, using a recovery tool.

Another good tool BCWipe has is the Wipe Special Folders. These folders are the most popular in Windows and include your Internet history, temp Internet folder, cookies, favorites, and various other heavily used folders that often contain personal data. Wiping these before you get rid of your computer or hard drive is a must. Simple to do you just have to create a new task and choose "Wipe special folder contents". Again you can set the schedule and the options but the defaults should work fine. Then just run the task or let your schedule do it for you.

Finally there is one more option and that is the "List of Recently used files" which is a list of files that windows stores that you have most recently accessed. These are probably some of your most important files since they are accessed often. Wiping these is important as well, they probably will be covered in the special folders but it's safe to just run this wipe as well just to make sure you get all of your personal data wiped off your PC/hard drive before getting rid of it.