Erase the files from your disks so they can’t be recovered

There is much talk about the security and privacy of our data when using our Windows computers , but we must also be careful. And it is that not all “responsibility” can be left to the applications and platforms we use, we must also be cautious with the use of applications such as Overwrite.

This will be of great help when it comes to keeping safe and out of the hands of others, something as important as our files and folders . In case some of you do not know, every time files are deleted from our computer, even if it does not seem like it to the naked eye, they could remain on the hard drive or external drive . Therefore, if we talk about sensitive and personal data, that is something that could affect our security and privacy . And as you know, we must be especially careful with everything we handle on a Windows or Linux computer.

Delete files securely with Overwrite

This is precisely where software called Overwrite comes into play. Specifically we refer to a free software for the Microsoft system and for Linux that you can download from here . To say that this is responsible for overwriting data and metadata, as well as empty disk space so that the deleted files are unrecoverable.

To get an idea, the program uses the parameters “-dirs” and “-data” to overwrite file names and other content with relative ease. In this way it makes everything that we deleted before, becomes unrecoverable. At the same time, we must bear in mind that from the same user interface , we have the opportunity to specify the number of files to be overwritten before the start of the process.

In this way, we will have a very efficient program to delete files permanently without overwriting other unnecessary areas of the hard drive . At the same time you have to know that using this overwrite tool is very simple. The entire process is initially carried out from a single window, which surely many will appreciate, especially the less experienced.

Overwrite borrar ficheros

Among the fields that we can customize here, we see the amount of data and metadata to be permanently deleted, the unit to be used (megabytes or gigabytes), the type of data we will use, as well as the block size . In this way and from a single interface , we indicate to the program if we want to overwrite with zeros, ones, or random contents . Thus, we can adjust these parameters depending on our needs, or even leave them as they are by default.

Compatibility of the secure erase program

Of course, once we have finished with all this, we will have to click on the Overwrite button to start the process as such. The truth is that the program does not take much time, although of course, it will also depend on the performance of our PC , as well as the number of files we need to overwrite.

Before finishing, it is important to know that the program does not overwrite files in operation, in addition to using functions of the operating system itself to perform the process. Similarly it can be used with different types of partitions such as NTFS , UFS, EXT, or FAT ; and it works on Windows, Linux, Unix systems , all for free.