Thursday, July 2, 2009

How to Permanently Remove Sensitive Data From Your Hard Drive

What ever the reason you may have for wanting to permanently remove all the data from your hard drive, there are several really great data shredders, and hard drive cleaners on the internet today.

If you are part of a company that is upgrading their computer systems and they want to donate the old ones, it is important that you know exactly how to permanently remove sensitive data from your hard drive. Getting rid of all those important files consists of more than just deleting the cookies, and the history. You need to go into the hard drive and delete the files themselves; however, this is not done by going into the hard drive and deleting the folders yourself. A good computer operator will know how to go back into the hard drive and do a systems recovery and bring all those files back up.

Every time you go to a website of any sort your computer is tagged by the website. This means that your computer identification is automatically given to the website, resulting in unwanted email, or advertisements. By using a shredder or a hard drive cleaner, your hard drive is swiped and all of your files are deleted permanently; however, when you are deleting the file this way, do not stop at one time, go through the process of swiping your files at least two more times to ensure that all the files have been permanently deleted.

A good hard drive cleaner will not only delete the files and folders that were previously deleted, but it sort of Nuke's the system, deleting all the hard drives. It will also erase the index.dat, and any encrypted files and other devises; the network files will also be erased permanently as well as the temporary files, the cookies, the history, and the internet cache which will defeat a file recovery after it has been swiped.

As to what is the best hard drive cleaner on the market, that is left up to each individual. Every person has their own preferences, and what one person likes another person may not. When you are searching for just the right cleaner beware of any free software or Freeware, these programs tend to only swipe part of your hard drive. It is much better if you are doing this for your own computer before you are going to upgrade it for a newer model, that you research the hard drive cleaners, decide which one you want to use for yours, then purchase it and use it. The one thing that is really important before you purchase your hard drive cleaner is to make sure that the program is compatible with your version of Windows.

Unknown Error 3234 in iPod

iTunes is the interface software that allows an iPod to interact with a computer system and transfer files. Using iTunes, you can also update or restore your iPod. At times, you face issues while performing these tasks. The process fails with an error message. However, after successfully restoring your iPod, you need to get the lost data using your backup. If backup fails or is currently not available, iPod Data Recovery applications can serve as complete recovery tools for lost data.

You might receive the below error message while trying to update or restore your iPod:

"An unknown error occurred ( -3234), make sure Internet connection is active"

The similar error message is also received when you try to connect to the iTunes Store.

Apple provides iTunes Store as the online digital media store. It is one of the leading online music vendors.

Cause

You have installed a security pack with your Internet connection software.

Solution

To solve the existing ssue, you need to remove the parental control by following these steps:

You should right-click the TDC-securitypack icon, which displays in System tray.

Select the TDC-securitypack icon from its shortcut menu

Check if TDC parental control-guide is used or not. If not, run through it.

Next, you need to login in TDC parental control with administrator rights

Then, you need to select the products to be installed and deselect the TDC parental control box. Choose for Apply Now

Parental control will be removed after you will restart the system

You can then try to connect to the iTunes Store, update the iPod or restore the iPod

After you restore your iPod, you should use your backup. But when backup cannot give the required results, iPod Recovery tools can be used. These are powerful tools that can locate and restore all files and folders from an iPod. Moreover, you can use such iPod Data Recovery softwre in all logical cases of data loss. These software are graphically rich applications with read-only design and effective recovery options.

Stellar Phoenix iPod Recovery is the comprehensive iPod Reocvery tool that recovers lost data from iPods. It is available for both Windows and Mac operating systems. It can restore all music files, pod casts, audio books, documents and graphic files. This read-only tool supports iPod generations like iPod Nano, iPod Classic, iPod Shuffle and iPod Mini. It provides advanced features like File Mask, File Filter etc.

Internet Security - Virus Checkers and Firewall Software, Protection Tips!

I been using the Internet for a long time now, so long I don't even remember when the first I ever used it. But back then there was a lot less hassle of having protection on our PCs and not only that! You also didn't have to worry about having your very own identity stolen!

Today's world is totally different, there are hundreds of thousands of people on the Internet that would love to steal your credit card, bank details, paypal account you name it they want it!

But it's not just that they also want to take your identity to ruin your credit by taking out massive loans in your name and having it paid in to your account for them to just withdraw it from there PC...

It does not stop there either, not only are we scared to wits of losing our cash but we also have people wanting to destroy our data on our computers out of pure fun and joy... It's a sad world we live in.

Now I'm not here to scare you, don't close that Internet connection just yet as I do also have some great tips and ideas on how to keep your self protected from such worries.

Firstly, every computer must own a Firewall, but I can hear the slow ticking in your head already banging away and asking... What's a Firewall?

Firewalls are designed to prevent other computers accessing your computer without your permission, to keep this very basic, a firewall is basically wall between you and the Internet. For others to get pass this wall they have to be given permission from the users on the other side.

Firewalls are great protection; I have used many, ZoneAlarm, Norton and also McAffee. But the best I have seen so far would have to be from Panda Software. They have a two in one package having Antivirus and Firewall all in one box. Though this may stop people from trying to attack your PC using software etc there are still many other routes that you can get attacked.

Viruses, Spyware, Trojans are just a few names that are currently taking advantage of thousands of PCs around the world; a firewall will not protect you from all of these!

Instead, you are going to need an Antivirus product which will take care of most of these threats.

Most Antivirus software will protect you from almost all threats on the Internet, you don't need Spyware protection for Spyware, Trojan protection for Trojans... You get the picture?

One single Antivirus application will do all the work for you, don't sit there searching endless searches for different products to help you out... Why?

In the end you will have loads of junk software on your PC all taking up system resources and wasting your computers CPU power. You will start to see your PC running slower and in the end you will just have to do a recovery of the entire system because it will be too naked to even start up... Phew!

But you get the picture now; a single application is all you need, the big brand names do all this for you at the moment, it runs in your task bar and does almost everything except make you a nice cold tea! Just make sure you install the latest Antivirus software soon as your Operating System is installed... We don't want anything bad slipping through do we!

To keep your self safe from all the nasty stuff on the Internet then the only best advice I can give you is to stay away from them bad nasty adult sites and also stay away from FREE software sites... These type of sites are hard to pick from, some are bad... Some are good.

Keep your software up to date and watch where you go and you should have no problems at all.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Hard Drive Recovery

For almost all computer users, losing critical data and information could be extremely shocking experience. If you are using your computer for business purposes or other significant matters, this can be very worrying to lose everything you've worked several months and years to build. The situations may become worse, if you do not have proper of your critical data. In such case, Hard Drive Recovery comes for your rescue.

Nevertheless your job responsibility, kind of work you do and type of hardware and software you use, data loss could take place at any point of time. Over time, your computer hard drive may crash or malfunctions that result into loss of all the data that you've stored on your computer hard drive.

Whenever such kind of disastrous situations take place to your computer, it is always a good thing that is known as data recovery. Without help of the recovery process, it will not be possible to salvage your lost, missing or inaccessible files. Recovery is the method of retrieving your mission critical data from a storage media that can not be accessed normally.

Data Recovery And Protecting Your Personal Files

As most computer users at present understand, practically all hard drives fail as a result of consistent use or even circumstances and though it can occur at anytime, hard disk failure on the whole requires more than a few years to take place, as a consequence of ordinary use. No matter what the case may be, you ought to always be totally aware of the options which are open to you, and what you must do if your hard drive ceases to function.

Data recovery is the most effective and by far the most approriate way to recover hard drive information that has been lost or erased from a hard disk. Hard drive recovery can bring back files which have been lost, no matter what the cause may be. From viruses all the way to hard drive failure, data recovery will restore the data on the hard drive by rebuilding those platters as well as the structure of the drive. Most experienced computer technicians will reclaim the drive in only a few days.

Before your disk drive can be reconstructed, it has to be assessed and this process would provide the computer technician a chance to sort through the hard drive, determine what caused the failure, and what they’ll have to do in order to restore your data. That’s a rather long process that involving a series of steps performed by the computer technician.

First things first, the computer technician needs to verify if the trouble is logical, physical, or maybe a combination of both of these, and while physical crashes result with hardware issues, logical issues are the fault of the software. Once the tech guy has established the problem along with the catalyst, he may possibly map out the repair process and what that he needs to do in order to reclaim the information.

If the technician has the ability to gain access into the hard drive, he or she will then create a mirror image of your drive and proceed with the process. Next will be the data structure, where the tech will ascertain exactly how much of your computer data may be recovered. This precise step in the evaluation may be the most time consuming, because the technician or technicians will have to go through each sector step by step and find what data can be retrieved and what data can’t be reclaimed.

When the evaluation is done, the technician will typically review the whole thing for you, and tell you the choices that are available. That’s about when they’ll talk about payment, along with the quantity of time it’ll necessitate, and they’ll additionally tell you exactly how much data may be reclaimed along with what they believe created the issue. You can always obtain a second opinion if you choose, or go ahead and use the person. In the rare event that no data can be reclaimed, the operative will inform you nothing may be done for the drive. Keep in mind that before they do anything to retrieve data, they will always contact you first to see what you wish to do about it.

Customarily, most data can be recovered in exactly 48 hours, though the examination might require a few days, as it is more time consuming and schemed than the real retrieval procedure. If the tech guy has all of the necessary parts on hand along with the knowledge, it usually doesn’t take long. However, if the hard drive has heaps of hardware as well as mechanical problems - it can take a a small number of weeks before you learn if the problem can be fixed.

About the Author:
Are you running the risk of a complete Hard Drive Failure and you don’t even know it? What if you could be completely prepared for this without having to spend allot of money on equipment. Find out how to protect you and your PC files at AdwareSpy your complete online computer security site