I have an ASUS Zenbook 14 running Windows, and I want to permanently remove old photos, documents, and other personal files so recovery tools can't restore them. I was surprised that recovery software could find files I had deleted months or years ago, even after emptying the Recycle Bin. Would a factory reset be sufficient, or should I use another method? I'm especially interested in the right approach for whatever type of drive is installed in the laptop.
2 Answers
Deleting a file usually removes its directory entry and marks the space as available; it doesn’t immediately erase the underlying contents. Recovery software can scan that unused space until it gets reused. On a hard drive, overwriting the disk can make the old data unrecoverable in practical terms. On an SSD, the controller’s wear-leveling and spare cells mean software overwriting is less predictable, so a proper secure erase or sanitize operation is the better choice.
First determine whether the laptop has an SSD or a traditional spinning hard drive. For a hard drive, securely erasing the entire disk with a bootable wiping tool is generally appropriate; a factory reset by itself may not overwrite previously deleted data. For an SSD, avoid repeatedly overwriting the drive with generic wiping software because of wear leveling. Use the SSD manufacturer’s secure-erase tool, a supported BIOS secure-erase function, or the drive’s built-in sanitize command instead.
That explains why emptying the Recycle Bin didn’t solve the problem. I’ll check whether the Zenbook uses an SSD before choosing a wiping method.