Cipher.exe Security Tool

Even if you format your drive, data can still be retrieved, you can use a built in tool in XP called cipher.exe to permantly destroy the data.

Cipher.exe is a command-line tool (included with Windows 2000 & XP) that you can use to manage encrypted data by using the Encrypting File System (EFS). As of June 2001, Microsoft has developed an improved version of the Cipher.exe tool that provides the ability to permanently overwrite (or "wipe") all of the deleted data on a hard disk. This feature improves security by ensuring that even an attacker who gained complete physical control of a Windows 2000 computer would be unable to recover previously-deleted data.

To overwrite the data:

• Quit all programs.
• Click Start, click Run, and type cmd, and then press ENTER.
• Type cipher /w:'folder', and then press ENTER, where folder is any folder on the drive you want to clean.

For example, the cipher /w:c:\test command causes the deallocated space on the test folder of drive C to be overwritten.

Use with caution.

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Cool, this will come in handy for deleting my... uh..er... filez...

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