Erased files showing up

[Nina250]

Hi. I have a Dell Inspiron 1545 that I want to clean so I can sell it. I used the Windows Vista install disk to install the OS cleanly. Note: there is still a recovery partition on this drive.

After loading Vista, I installed Eraser to ensure any files that weren't overwritten during the installatoin got securely deleted. I erased the unused space. I didn't change any of the defaults.

Then I attached the drive to my other computer (XP) and used my recovery program to ensure that all files were deleted. My recovery program (Disk Internals NTFS) did indeed find numerous files. I clicked thru the recovered files and tried to open some of them. I was unable to open any of the randomly selected files. I would see something like some.jpg with size 758 K which seems normal.

I'm wondering if these are simply directory entries but not the actual file. Either way, I want them and any entry associated with them erased.

Any clue here as to what's going on?

thanks

 

[Nina250]

I hoped someone would have responded. Is this a lost cause? Should I go to the manufacturer and get a low-level formatting utility?

thanks

 

[garrett01]

Erasing unused space only does that. These files can still exist in the system restore section or recycle bin of that drive all marked as undeleted. I suggest you format the drive and then run a free space erase of 1 pass.

 

[Nina250]

Thanks, I did end up wiping the entire drive. I was hoping to avoid doing that.