In a hurry to clean a hard drive before recycling a 2011 Dell Inspiron, I downloaded and ran Eraser free version on the C: drive of the computer. (I realize now I shouldn't have done that.) I chose the option for erasing the entire drive to avoid having to select files or folders. The program ran for several hours (it showed 60% done after about 5 hours when I went to bed). When I got up in the morning, the computer black screen had one line showing "Missing operating sy" and it won't reboot even if I put a Windows operating system DVD or a system recovery DVD in the DVD tray.
Can I be sure that all personal data and files were deleted? If not, is there anything I can now do to reboot the computer and do it right this time?
Thank you for any advice you can provide (besides "read the manual before running Eraser again")?
Can I be sure that all personal data and files were deleted? If not, is there anything I can now do to reboot the computer and do it right this time?
Thank you for any advice you can provide (besides "read the manual before running Eraser again")?