Simply deleting data from your hard drive or memory cards is not enough to ensure that the files will not be recovered by someone with the right knowledge. When files are deleted, the space they occupied is merely marked as being available for use, so it may be some time before this data is actually overwritten. Even when data has been overwritten by saving a file in the same location, there are still tools that can be used to recover data.

Even when a drive is formatted, similar techniques and tools can be used to undelete files that you thought has been erased. Disk Wipe is a free tool that can be used to completely wipe out the contents of a hard drive. This is great news if you are planning on selling your drive or computer and are concerned that your private data could be accessed by other people.

But the program can also be used with USB drives and memory cards such as those used in digital cameras. Disk Wipe is a portable app which means that it does not need to be installed, so you can keep it on a small USB drive for those times when you need accessed to a security tool whatever type of drive you choose to wipe – providing it is formatted in FAT, FAT32 or NTFS formats – a wizard is on hand to guide you through every steps of the way.

Secure disk wiping is a fairly lengthy process, but you can balance security and time by adjusting the priority at which the wiping is done, and choosing different levels of security. Disk Wipe also has more to offer. It can reveal helpful information about any of the drives it detects and also features a data viewer that can be used to display Hex data which may be helpful when diagnosing certain problems and can also be used to uncover lost information.