where on hd or comp is info stored

[tool50]

If Im storing personal info , but deleted info , where is this stored , hd or bios ? only of personal security only .

[jdeb]

this utlility works very well for recovering deleted files off of your hard drive. It is free as well

Recuva - Undelete, Unerase, File and Disk Recovery - Free Download

[Nuclear Krusader]

Everything is writen to the hard drive, except for BIOS settings (the ones you can only set up in the BIOS setup).

As for deleted data, in Windows it essentially remains there: the OS doesn't remove it, it merely marks the clusters it's in as 'available', so that any new piece of new data can be written to it, then and only then, the 'deleted' data is gone for good. This is why deleted files can be recovered with tools like the one jdeb linked to.

[rwest]

Yes; but if it's been written over more than a few times, it's gone correct?
Isn't that pretty much what a zero fill does?

[glc]

Forensic techniques can even recover data from a zeroed out drive. That's why government wipe standards are so stringent, it's something like 7 complete cycles of 1's and 0's.

[Nuclear Krusader]

Unix-based OSes have the handy srm command which allows one to write over the deleted data either 7 or 35 times, each time using a different string of data as specified by the Gutmann algorithm. If you use the latter, you can be sure that the data is, to the extent of human reach, completely irrecoverable.

I've been looking for a tool that allows one to do the same for Windows. Anyone knows?

[David M]

Another way to destroy data (and much quicker) is to put a 1/2 inch drill bit through the drive platter. Although, obviously, it will be unusable after that.

I have done this with a couple old computers that I sent to the recyclers so that I did not have to bother booting it up and running drive erase software.