Your computer is....

[v-a-m]

You know the ads, "Your computer is a time bomb waiting to go off"... your computer hoards eveidence against you! Every chat log, picture, website, keystroke is saved to your computer! Whatever and whatnot.

Such products as the ultimately expensive Evidence Eliminator, and Windows Washer, etc, can get rid of it..

What exactly are these suspicious files they are saving? Is it just the cookies, and history?

How come I "can't manually delete them"?

I'm confused, they make it sound like I have bomb plans on my computer, or am cheating on my wife?

Any help? And how can I wash my harddrive of all the websites, and emails? I dont like the thought of having my chats and emails, all over my computer hidden.

Someone help?

Thanks, peace to you
v-a-m

[VHockey86]

You can start with a Spybot - Search & Destroy. Its a free program to remove spyware/adware. Can get it from www.download.com

If you want to truly just clean up all the data on your computer, you would have to format it a few times over (aka "write zeros to it")

[v-a-m]

I've used spybot, search & destroy.....

Does anyone know how one would go about writing your data to zeros?

Thanks, peace to you,
v-a-m

[SeanC]

You would need to download a utility specifically designed to do that. Some people call it "low level formatting". The best place to get that utility is from the website of your drive manufacturer.

Sean

[agathodaimon]

Yeah, I have a Samsung Hard drive, and downloaded a set of utilities for my specific model. It allowed me to erase the drive, test the drive, etc...

But when you "write zeroes" to the hard drive, you are completely erasing EVERYTHING... Basically making your hard drive the way it came from the factory. I don't know if that's what you wanted or not.
If you don't want to reformat, Evidence eliminator would be a good choice
OR you can go to http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?id=12 and see what kind of free utilities they have.

Personally, I like reformatting my HD every couple of months or so just to keep it clean and running smoothly.

[shawshank62]

I use Disk Cleaner.......looking for link, brb....and i ususally format my drives every 3 to 4 months to keep it clean as well.

EDIT: http://www.xs4all.nl/~mp2004/

This gets rid of a lot of crap on IE and Opera (if you d/l the plug in). Its free and i have been using it for about 2 years, great product.

[v-a-m]

Yah I have a Hewlett Packard computer. How do I know the drive manufactirer? And what do I search for on their site?

I want my conputer basiclaly how it was from the facotory. Although, when I bought the computer, I had Win XP already on it (didnt get a disk) so would that leave me windowless?

And would I have to save my important programs to disc then re-load them?

Thanks,
v-a-m

[agathodaimon]

If you open up the case and look at the hard drive, you'll more than likely see a sticker or a stamp on it somewhere with the manufacturer on it.

But usually, most pre-built computers come with a Restore disk, not an OS disk... That disk will restore your comp to the original condition that you bought it as.
The only problem with pre-built machines & wiping the hard drive is that you're going to have to make sure you have all of the drivers for your components that were in the machine when you bought it.... Like sound, video, chipset, LAN, etc...

[Gait_Keeper]

most of what everyone else said

i have nothing to hide, but there are programs that leave a lot of crap on your drive,

a clean drive is like new underware

[coldfusion22]

Thre are two programs that scambmle the filer propery and locations. One is called Evidence Eliminator and the other is called East Tec Eliminator 2003.