Secure Erase Files With Blank And Secure
Blank and Secure is a tiny program for Windows devices to delete files securely so that they cannot be recovered anymore afterwards.
It is sometimes necessary to make sure that old files are deleted permanently. This can for instance be important before selling a hard drive on eBay, installing confidential software on a third party computer (and erasing it afterwards), or after downloading stuff on the Internet that you do not want anyone to find out about after deleting it.
Blank And Secure is a portable software program to securely erase files on a computer system running Windows
The program offers several means to do that including dragging and dropping files on the window. A click on the delete button erases all files and folders securely on the device.
Blank and Secure
A shortcoming of the program is the fact that it will only overwrite the data with nulls. That's however the only algorithm the program supports. While that may not make a huge difference for home use, it would have been great if other options would be available
The program counts down before starting the deletion, and pressing ESC during that time will cancel the process.
The second option offered by Blank and Secure is to wipe the free space on a hard drive or partition. This removes traces of data on that unused space and ensures that the files cannot be recovered anymore once the operation completes.
This can be a useful option to erase all data on a hard drive, for instance before giving it to someone else. Simply format the drive, and run Blank and Secure's free space routine on it afterwards.
The program offers some configuration options in the interface. You may change the number of overwrite actions from 1 up to 35. Another option is to schedule a system shut down or program exit once the process completes.
Verdict
Blank and Secure is an interesting straightforward program to delete files securely, and to remove old file traces from hard drives and other storage devices connected to a Windows machine.
There are alternatives like Eraser that may appeal to some users as they provide options to select different overwrite algorithms.
Update: When you test the effectiveness of Blank and Secure with other secure file erasers you will come to the conclusion that the program does a thorough job. You can test the results with file recovery software such as Recuva which scan the selected hard drive for remains. If none are found, the procedure was completed successfully.
I think i have some mysterious clutter in my system which doesn’t show up in my computer! but its there when i try to defragment!
Hope this tool will clean them up!
My choice is East-Tec Eraser,but important you keep a secured encrypted backup first also make sure your encryption doesn’t has a backdoor,LOL.
What’s wrong with nulls? :) Seriously, erasing “algorithms” are either government-issued-standards paranoia or developers’ buzzword to sell shareware.
When data is overwritten – it is gone. Doesn’t matter with what or how many times. There are myths about “remaining partial charges” but whatever fluctuations remain they are impossible to use for recovery with current level of tech.