What does shred file mean?

Answer 1

Found this answer in ask.yahooWhat does it mean when you shred free disk space on C: Drive? I am selling my computer and was told to run CC Cleaner and to also download File Shredder to shred free disk space on my C: drive. Will this be ok? Will all the files i've deleted through recycle bin (tax return info, property contracts, personal photos....) now be unrecoverable?

• 3 years ago

The Best Answer

When you "shred" or erase free disk space, it means the computer will overwrite unused portions of the hard drive with random bits of information like a bunch of zeros so that recovery of the file is virtually impossible. Normally when you delete a file, the actual data contents is not removed or overwritten from the hard drive, it just tells the computer the area on the disk where that file used to be stored is now free to be used for something else.

Answer 2

Deleting or erasing a computer file is not the same as shredding a file. When deleting or erasing on a computer, the computer ONLY removes the link a user needs to get to that file. The computer also marks that space where the file (still is) as available to have something new saved to it.

Let's use an example. Let's say you have 10 school papers. On 3 of them, you got a C or D---so you want to "get rid" of them. Two others you are not proud of, so you want to "get rid" of those also. You take each of the 5 papers and put them into a folder you marked as "Scratch paper". You THINK no one will see your bad 5 papers because they are labeled differently now. But your mom, IF she knows you have a paper folder called "scratch paper" could find them. Even if she finds them by accident, she could still see what they are.

Deleting/erasing is like putting "papers" into a paper folder and thinking they are "hidden"-- but they aren't.

Shredding a PC file is similar to shredding real paper. You or a machine cuts paper into teeny bits, and mixes them up so no two bits can be put back together. Computer-file shredding is like that--a program "cuts up" the file contents to make it harder to put back together.