Hardwipe

Software Description

Hardwipe is a free "document shredder" for your PC. It integrates seemlessly with Window Explorer so that you can simply right-click to wipe files, hard-disks and USB sticks. Hardwipe provides an auto-shutdown feature, so you can simply leave a lengthy job running and know that your computer will be shutdown when it's finished. It supports all the major overwriting schemes and can also purge your Windows swapfile.

Key features:

- Easily wipe entire drives and portable devices.

- Wipe individual files or clean empty drive space of remanent data.

- Right-click within Windows Explorer for Hardwipe commands.

- Efficient — Hardwipe is fast in comparison other data wiping software.

- Intelligent use of disk cache allows your computer to remain responsive during lengthy disk operations.

- Automatic computer shutdown when wiping is complete.

- Supports all major data wiping schemes, including: GOST R 50739-95, DOD 5220.22-M, Schneier & Gutmann.

Hardwipe is a data sanitization utility designed to permanently erase, or to "hard wipe", data on disk and portable storage media to prevent personal and sensitive business information from being recovered later. You can either run Hardwipe as a standalone application from the Windwos Start Menu, you can use it from within Windows Explorer by right-clicking on file system items and selecting the appropriate Hardwipe menu command.

The Wipe Files command destroys only the file items you select. You can select multiple files and folders with this command, and Hardwipe will not only overwrite file contents, but will also destroy the filenames themselves. If you select a folder, all all contents within the folder will be destroyed, as well as the folder itself.

Before wiping starts, you will have the opportunity to select a data sanitization scheme and you will also be asked for final confirmation. Once data is wiped, it will generally not be recoverable, although certain caveats may apply if the device were to be subjected to laboratory analysis).

Wipe drive, this command can be used to wipe a logical drive volume, including the volume's format information. The drive volume will need to be re-formatted once wiping is complete.

Wiping an entire drive may take several hours, or even longer, depending on the chosen sanitization scheme. Because of the time required, you may wish to leave your computer unattended while the operation is performed and have Hardwipe shutdown your computer when it has finished. See the Auto-Shutdown option, below, for more information.

Note. Elevated privileges are required to wipe volumes hosted on internal drives. Currently, you need to start Hardwipe using "Run as Administrator" to do this, although future versions shall request elevation automatically.

The Clean Free Space command wipes over the unused space on the selected drive volume, but will not delete any existing data. Cleaning empty space simply prevents old data — data which has already been deleted but is still physically resident on the device — from being recovered later.

It is possible to select multiple drive volumes at the same time with this command. Additionally, checking the Empty Recycler option will tell Hardwipe to empty the Recycler on the selected volumes prior to cleaning so that the space occupied by items in Recycler can be sanitized.

Cleaning an entire drive may take several hours, or even longer, depending on the chosen sanitization scheme.

Cleaning an entire drive, or wiping over a large amount of file data, typically requires a lengthy period of disk writing. It will be normal, in such cases, for your computer to become less responsive as applications have to share drive IO resources. Often this will not be a problem, indeed, it usually preferable to have Hardwipe complete the process as quickly as possible, especially if you plan to leave your computer unattended while it is performed. If, however, you wish to continue using your computer, even a small reduction in your computer's responsivity can be annoying. Hardwipe aims to be accommodating by intelligently adjusting the disk writing speed if it detects that the computer is in use.

When the Write Priority is set to "Automatic", Hardwipe will slow the disk writing when it detects mouse or keyboard activity, but will allow it to increase when it thinks the computer is idle or the Hardwipe application is in the foreground. You can also override this by selecting either "High (fast)" or "Low (slow)" from the main window.

Clicking on the Log button will display a record of events (see below) associated with the most recent operations.

Sometimes a wiping operation may fail, or may succeed only partially. For example, a single file may not get destroyed because it was in use, but the other files selected were wiped successfully. In this case, the result will be shown as a "partial success" and you can look in the log to see the details.

By default, the log window's contents are held only in memory and are lost when Hardwipe exits. You may opt to have the record of the last wiping operation stored between application re-starts from the options window.

During a prolonged wiping operation, you may wish to leave your computer unattended and have Hardwipe shutdown it down automatically when it has finished. In this case, you can check the Auto-Shutdown Computer option on the main window. Ensure that you also save any work and quit other foreground applications.

In the event the wiping operation does not fully succeed, computer shutdown will not occur, so as to give you the opportunity to see that a problem was encountered.

If you change your mind at any time prior to the job completing, you can simply uncheck the shutdown option to prevent shutdown from occurring.

Soft-Go is not responsible for the content of Hardwipe publisher's description. We encourage you to determine whether this product or your intended use is legal. We do not encourage or condone the use of any software in violation of applicable laws.

Any form of support or technical problems regarding Hardwipe must be addressed to its developer/publisher. Please be aware that we do NOT provide Hardwipe cracks, serial numbers, registration codes or any forms of pirated software downloads.

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Related Searches

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Download Note

Hardwipe is periodically updated by our editors team but sometimes you may find out that software informations are outdated, please note that the publisher of Hardwipe can update the software without notifying us. Current version of Hardwipe is 2.0.

Note: Soft-Go doesn't provide any form of technical support regarding Hardwipe, however, you may find answer to your problem by reading user reviews or directly contacting Big Angry Dog which's the publisher/developer of this software.

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