BEST WAY TO DESTROY A HARD DRIVE

Yes, my question was most certainly capably answered and I appreciate all who contributed. And I learned a lot too.

The best and safest way is to easily remove the hard drive..Every thing you ever did on the computer is on the Hard Drive...Simply remove it...Naturally, first..turn off your power....

Beschoice

You know that Secretary of Defense Gates had his e-mail hacked, a couple of years ago? Things have improved somewhat, I gather, but online security will never be perfect, so another way to protect data confidentiality is to keep it on disks never linked to the web.

In addition you may look up somewhat more advanced search terms, in case you are interested: "program obfuscation" and "key-exposure resilient cryptography." Of course these techniques would have to be applied before the data is actually saved on the disk. Btw, I loved the term "program 'obfuscation'", and I conscientiously had it spelled for me, thinking maybe it's some obscure technical term meaning something different from the everyday meaning of the word, but nah! it means exactly the same.

I have an exterior hard drive that I use to back up our critical files, HighSeas, but the reality of our high tech world these days is that there is less and less option to work without making our data accessible to the internet. When ElStud and I first started up our little business years ago, our product was almost all hand written or we used a typewriter to punch out narratives as needed. As the requirements of the business gradually required more and more computer work we ran the computer software and printed out the product and mailed it in which also was low risk securitywise. But the last few years that option was no longer available to us as our clients required more and more work completed and transmitted electronically so that we are now essentially a paperless operation.

Also it is really tough to resist the temptation to use the import capabilities for investment accounts and other features in our accounting system and the convenience of online banking.

So we just hope our firewalls and other security are efficient and effective.

OK, here's a simple, free way to really delete old files: download CCleaner>
http://www.ccleaner.com/update/?v=2.21.940&l=1033
> go to Options, choose Settings, look to "secure deletion" choices, pick Gutmann.