Emptied hard drive is not really empty!

[remluf]

I have two hard drives in my PC. The second one contains all my stuff (pics, music, video, letters, etc). I back this up onto an external hard drive once a month. The PC has a partially filled 300GB drive, and until this week, the backup was 200GB. I have now upgraded this to 300GB so the original & backup are the same size (hard drives are fantastically cheap now).
I just deleted the 200GB backup as I am going to sell it as a blank disc. I bypassed the recycle bin by highlighting all the folders and pressed Shift/Delete. The explorer window emptied - all the folders and files disappeared.
However, when I go to My computer & right-click on the drive, it says 5GB is used.
There are no hidden folders as my PC is set to show them.
I defragmented the drive and it said it was moving file A0121559.exe. What is this and why doesn't it show up in the drive's explorer window? There should be no program files anyway as these are all on the C drive.
No doubt deleting the partition & formatting the drive will completely wipe it, but what are these 5GB's worth of files and why don't the show themselves?

 

[pctechmike1]

Deleting the partition and formatting will not get rid of everything. If there was anything personal on there, it's probably still there. You need a program to wipe the drive securely. I suggest this program, it's a free download Kill Disk

 

[wozelbeak]

yes, even after re-formating your personal stuff can be recovered!
there are plenty of companys that offer this recovery service for big ££$$.
http://www.ontrack.co.uk/understandingdataloss/

woz

 

[Half Evil]

yes, even after re-formating your personal stuff can be recovered!
there are plenty of companys that offer this recovery service for big ££$$.
http://www.ontrack.co.uk/understandingdataloss/

woz

That barely makes sense. But ok, lol.. Ill read up on that.

 

[kev]

Nationwide Data Recovery is cheaper.
www.nationwidedatarecovery.com

However i use Norton Wipe to wipe a drive and to recover stuff i use the free program called EZRecovery. by Ontrend.

 

[Tommy Boy]

what those programs do is write over the info on the drive with like 1's and zero's and whatever. when you reformat it doesn't delete the stuff on the drive, it just marks it for overwriting, same way with deleting things. they don't really get deleted, they get overwritten when you put something new on the drive. those programs are perfect for writing over whatever is on the drive so none of it can be recovered.

 

[JustinMcG67]

So is there a way to actually completely get rid of the data?

 

[kev]

We just told you.

 

[setishock]

Oh man I can't sit idle and let you guys tell this guy to go the long fracking way around. remluf just do this>>>
The best way is to recertify the drive. Go to the makers website and download the diag program. Follow the directions and make the floppy. BOOT from the floppy and select the drive you want to kill. Then select recertify the drive. It writes all zeros to the drive and if anything WAS on it, then it's gone. Do it twice and it's real gone.

 

[SLIPKNOTN21]

Is iolo's System shield Good do you guys think?

http://iolo.com/ss/index.cfm