Erasing and Formatting - Just Not Secure Enough! Simply erasing all the data on your hard drive and formatting it is not enough security. You can spend hours going through your hard drive and deleting all the files and documents you want, but using the delete key on your keyboard in Windows basically only removes the shortcuts to the files making them invisible to users. Deleted files still reside on the hard drive and a quick Google search will show many options for system recovery software will allow anyone to reinstate that data.

Formatting the hard drive is a bit more secure than simply erasing the files. Formatting a disk does not erase the data on the disk, only the address tables. It makes it much more difficult to recover the files. However a computer specialist would be able to recover most or all the data that was on the disk before the reformat. For those who accidentally reformat a hard disk, being able to recover most or all the data that was on the disk is a good thing. However, if you're preparing a system for retirement to charity or any other organization, this obviously makes you more vulnerable to data theft.

For some businesses and individual users, a disk format may be something you consider secure enough, depending on the type of data and information you saved to your computer.

As long as people understand that formatting is not a 100 percent secure way to completely remove all data from your computer, then they are able to make the choice between formatting and even more secure methods.  If you have decided a disk format is a good choice, at the very least to do a full format rather than a quick format.

ICFI Disk Wiping Service (aka. Data Dump)

Even more secure than reformatting is a process called disk wiping. The term disk wiping is not only used in reference to hard drives but any storage device such as CDs, RAIDs, thumb drives and others.

Disk wiping is a secure method of ensuring that data, including company and individually licensed software on your computer and storage devices is irrecoverably deleted before recycling or donating the equipment.