Printer Friendly
Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus - The Free Dictionary
3,910,121,008 visitors served.
forum Join the Word of the Day Mailing List For webmasters
?
Dictionary/
thesaurus
Medical
dictionary
Legal
dictionary
Financial
dictionary
Acronyms
 
Idioms
Encyclopedia
Wikipedia
encyclopedia
?

file wipe
(redirected from file delete)

     0.03 sec.
file wipe
A security measure when selling, giving away or retiring a computer. A file wipe completely erases the data from the hard disk.

Deleting Does Not Erase
When a file is deleted in an application or file manager, only the file name in the directory is marked as deleted. The data still reside in the disk sectors until overwritten by new data by the same or some other application. In the meantime, if somebody wanted the file badly enough, it can be reconstructed from the sector data.

Wipe Means Write
Wiping the hard disk means actually erasing the data in the disk sectors. For maximum security, experts claim that random data should be written into the sectors several times, because forensic analysis can detect the previous magnetic residue if the magnetic bits are overwritten only once. In addition, caches such as the recycle bin and trash can are also cleared. See wipe.
Want to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit the webmaster's page for free fun content.
?Page tools
Printer friendly
Cite / link 		Feedback
Mentioned in?  References in periodicals archive?   Encyclopedia browser?   Full browser?
No references found
 
Commercial software does tend to offer more features than freeware and to be frank, the support you get with commercial software does tend to make the price worthwhile as in many cases you will be looking to use a file delete utility prior to ridding yourself of the PC.
Deleting A File Doesn't Mean It's Deleted Forever so How Do You ... by Sam Miller / Computers and Internet community
You''d better think again - the information is still there you just cannot see it because performing a file delete in Windows only acts to tell Windows XP not to display the file on your desktop or in the folder contents on your PC screen.
The Difference Between Deleting and Shredding Data May Mean the ... by Sam Miller / Computers and Internet community
 
 
 
Encyclopedia
?

Terms of Use | Privacy policy | Feedback | Advertise with Us | Copyright © 2012 Farlex, Inc.
Disclaimer
All content on this website, including dictionary, thesaurus, literature, geography, and other reference data is for informational purposes only. This information should not be considered complete, up to date, and is not intended to be used in place of a visit, consultation, or advice of a legal, medical, or any other professional.