[needstechhelp02]

Hi guys,

I have a rather strange problem. You see, I use a computer everyday at work. One day recently, I brought my personal USB drive in with me, to put something on my work computer that I needed. In any case, when I put the USB in and looked at the files it contained, I saw that I had accidentally left some personal (non work safe) files on my USB.

So, not thinking, I immediately deleted the files, thinking “I shouldn’t leave these files on this while I have it at work”.

Stupid of me though. I was totally forgetting that when I deleted the files off my USB, they would go into the Trash Can on my work computer. I immediately “restored” the files in the Trash Can back onto my USB, and just got rid of the files once I got home.

In any case, these files are not something I want anyone at my work to see. And I should say, please don’t think that I’m some sort of creep. These “personal files” are personal, but they’re not illegal, malicious, etc etc. Just personal. As well, I’m not so unprofessional that I would try to be using/looking at these files at work or anything. I made a simple mistake.

And… would like to know if anyone can tell me if there is ANY way someone could still access those files after what I did.

I know that theoretically, even if you delete something on a computer, it’s not deleted, but instead the harddrive is just told that it can write over that sector in the future. So, I flooded my harddrive with harmless files so that I literally had 0 bytes of free space left, presuming that since the ENTIRE harddrive was written with other stuff, there would be no way to recover that date on the drive.

But other then that, I can’t think of how else someone could access the files?

I need to be 110% sure no one ever sees those files. Please help.


A Guy Who Made a Dumb Mistake

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the answer is here

You do not have to wipe the hard drive free space if you use Eraser to Erase the Recycle Bin.
If you just Empty the Recycle Bin, then you do need to wipe the hard drive free space.
You can securely delete a file simply by putting it into the recycle bin then use Eraser to Erase the Recycle Bin.
If you want to securely delete the file at once, just right click the file and select Erase.
get it here

Edited by happyrck, 07 January 2008 - 07:24 AM.

[happyrock]

the answer is here

You do not have to wipe the hard drive free space if you use Eraser to Erase the Recycle Bin.
If you just Empty the Recycle Bin, then you do need to wipe the hard drive free space.
You can securely delete a file simply by putting it into the recycle bin then use Eraser to Erase the Recycle Bin.
If you want to securely delete the file at once, just right click the file and select Erase.
get it here

Edited by happyrck, 07 January 2008 - 07:24 AM.