Completely erase files on hard drive, how do I?

I want to completely erase the files that I am not using. What App can I use to do this?

Thank you

 

Have a look at some of these. I have not used any of them, so I do not know how well they work. http://majorgeeks.com/downloads12.html

E

 

thank you

 

There's different types of erasing, and this also depends on if you want to delete everything on a hard drive, or just some selected files and folders. Any of the bootable partition programs will have an option to format the hard drive which erases everything. If you want the entire contents of the hard drive completely 'wiped' (which means erased beyond all forms of recovery) then you'd use something like this http://www.majorgeeks.com/Active_KillDisk_d4791.html or this http://www.majorgeeks.com/Dariks_Boot_and_Nuke_d4596.html Boot to it and it will completely wipe out all data on the hard drive. If you just want to securely wipe out individual folders or files, use DPWipe http://www.majorgeeks.com/DP_Wiper_d4916.html Be careful with DPWipe; there's no going back, no chance of recovery if you accidentally select the wrong file or folder. And here's some links to bootable partition/hard drive tools for formatting drives, creating partitions, and the like:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/Partition_Logic_d4780.html
http://www.majorgeeks.com/Super_Fdisk_d4985.html
http://www.majorgeeks.com/CPM_Cute_Partition_Manager_d5369.html ( I have not personally used this one, but I know the other two are great)
There's also some tools for 'shredding' free space on your hard drive. Basically, it will scan the drive looking for areas that have been marked as free and empty (many times these areas actually contain data and leftovers from old programs and documents but have been labeled as free space even though there is data there) and when empty space is found, it shreds it similar to a paper shredder, effectively destroying any remnants or leftovers in the free space. There's quite a few programs that will do this, but the only one I have personally used is nCleaner (it has many other options too) http://www.majorgeeks.com/nCleaner_d5476.html
Well, I think that just about covers it. Every program mentioned above is totally 100% free to download and install and use. If you have more questions, feel free to post 'em!
Good luck! I hope I was able to help a bit!

:major
[dlb]