One day I had may hard disk crashed, I need to reformat it and to install the Windows again and install all the programs and copy all the files from the backup drives, I was missing some data that was located on the desktop just before the computer crash, so I decided to try file recover utility. It was not hard to find some freeware tool which was working for about 15 minutes analyzing the partition of the hard disk.

Once the analysis was finished it showed me the files which were available for recovering and the prognosis about recovering quality. Well, file names were destroyed as I has to fully reformat the hard disk and even change the size of partitions, but the actual content was available for recovering.

The recovery software that I used was quite powerful and it allowed to search for certain text within a deleted files. I did this and found files from my desktop. It was two files created with notepad, so I was able to read them completely. As for files created with MS Word, then it was harder to find these files and it was harder to recover the content, but finally I did this too.

After this happened to me I have made three conclusions. The first was - replace my hard drive with more reliable one and do backup more often, the second was - keep important and top secret files as a plain text format, so it would be easier to recover them in a case of crash, the third - use file shreader or file shredder or file wiper or file eraser.

There are a number of names for this kind of software, but what I needed was the tool that provided me with an easy way to get rid of deleted files. Actually, I don't worry, if one of my colleagues will be able to recover some data, I'm afraid more what it will be if I will lose my laptop or if I will have some spy ware program.

What I want to do is just a simple idea - if I delete file in Windows, then I want it to be really deleted. It's not really about paranoia or something else. I just want Windows to do what I expect it to do.

It's clear about file shreader what about backup software? I use one which was distributed as OEM with my laptop. It's a good idea to think about risks and managing risks. So here key principles are: if you change something - backup it. If you do some minor changes - drop a copy to your flash drive, if you did some major changes - drop a copy at rewriteable dvd. I followed these simple ideas for about five years and they worked for me.

Once laptop of my colleague was stolen and it was not a problem as all data was located on encrypted disks and he followed my recommendation and used a file shreader. I have personally faced 2 or 3 system crashes and I have not lost anything due to right backup policy. So don't wait until your hard drive will should you a warning message, just do a backup regularly.