Prevent Restore is an easy to use software that can be used to wipe the free space of a hard drive. It is in this regard an alternative to the popular free program Eraser which can be configured to do the same.

Prevent Restore displays a list of hard drives on startup which can be selected for the disk wipe process.

Only the drive letters are shown in that menu which might make the identification more complicated than necessary. Users should also make sure that they do not (accidentally) select a SSD for the process.

A total of five different algorithms are available of which only one is provided to users who have not registered the software. The replace with spaces option is available to those users. Registered users who have to pay $9.95 to do so can also select random characters or digits, Peter Gutmann algorithm or the Department of Defense algorithm.

The program has not changed a lot since our first review of it in 2008. Most features that have been added have only been added to the commercial version of the program. (see Erase Files for our first review)

Prevent Restore is an alternative to Eraser, especially for users who have troubles with the program. Eraser is on the other hand the disk wipe program with a better functionality and choices. There is no need to use Prevent Restore if Eraser is working properly.

Why would someone walk the extra mile and erase files that already have been deleted in Windows? The answer to that question is simple: Windows does not really delete the file, it only deletes the reference to the file which tells the system where files are located on the hard drive. It’s like loosing the address of a friend’s house. You could not point your finger on it on a map but it is still existing and calling the friend would reveal its location again.

Files can be recovered if they have not been erased properly. The age of a file plays a role in determining the chances of success. A rule of thumb is that new files have a higher chance to be recovered than files that have been deleted a while ago.

Prevent Restore was designed with ease of use in mind. The user picks a partition that he wants to erase files from, selects the type of data that should replace the deleted files and the program does all the hard work in the background. It uses several security algorithms to overwrite the deleted data on the hard drive ensuring that the data cannot be recovered with recovery software.

So how does it compare to Eraser? The user interface of Prevent Restore is not providing many options to choose from. This is less confusing but advanced computer users might miss features that Eraser offers. Eraser on the other hand comes with options that Prevent Restore does not offer. This includes the selection of the data algorithm to erase files or a scheduler that performs the operation regularly.

Eraser can also erase existing files and folders securely and it does support all Microsoft Windows operating systems from Windows 95 on while Prevent Restore is only compatible to Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Advanced users will most likely stick with Eraser while beginners might tend to work with Prevent Restore to erase files on their system.