How do you erase from your hard drive?  

This thing is you can't fully erase things from a hard drive without breaking them. There are software's that can bring files back, and even after you have rewritten over them lot of times the magnetic signal can still be read from the hard drive (I read a article about new technology that can do this but it is very expensive). You can however buy a program that can rewrite over a file a lot of times that will make it so it is very hard to retrieve even for the best programs. This program is good for people who want to protect sensitive data because I don't think may people will go through the expensive process of reading the faint magnetic signals on the hard drive. If the data is so sensitive that you don't want anyone to get hold of it ever I would just destroy the hard drive. Hope I answered your question, have a good day. =)

I don't think so, once it is deleted to your recycle bin, it is gone right? Otherwise, if you want to make sure it is completely gone off from your hard drive, format it completely. I think it is gone once you deleted it.

So even you can understand, rflol, coffeebreak! Disk sanitation or wiping a drive is not something I much bother with personally, but the first thing that comes to mind is that you don't want to erase system files that you need in order to run the computer! That would be OUCH. Maybe this article will help:

http://www.pcworld.com/ar...

I buy subscriptions to programs that have the wipe utilities, but I hardly ever have to use them. Most of my data is pictures of plants from my garden.

lol coffeebreak, i wonder what are you trying to hide :P.

anyway, yes you're right when you delete things, even after clearing your recycle bin, those file can still be recovered. you'll need some other programs to do that.

deleted files in the Recycle Bin (or whatever term they use for OS other than windows) is not like the trash in real life. when a file is deleted, the data is still there but the spot where the data is written on is flagged as unused slot and new data can be written on that spot.

formating could wipe clean a hard drive, but not the quick format. still, i heard with proper programs, the data on formated hard drive can still be recovered. programs to really wipe clean a hard drive is available but i have never use it. i just use the windows recycle bin.

if you make a full format to your hard drive I think they will not be reversed. There are special addresses on the hard disk which unused and it is used as a backup media. In the event of damage or even failure in the filling and reading of data, you can return it to the original but it was also noted that part of the deleted file is not empty.

~ hello! I erase regulary all the junk on my HDD, because it would work slower and it is also not recommended to leave it for a long time uncleaned, because all this things/junk makes it work slower and not proper. I use the ccleaner and some defragmetation softwares to do that. but the best way is still the FORMAT ~

Well.. it's like a Index entry.
When you delete files at that time it will erase entry from your index only which is called File Allocation Table.
When you write/copy files to the same location from where you deleted files. New index entry will be made and your deleted files will be gone forever.

And if you are talking about delete your internet work.
Use Ccleaner to erase everything.
or you can erase Browsing cookies/temporary files from your browser setting
Go to run type %temp% and delete all.

There are many ways to completely erase a file. You could software based application in which the software will erase it three or many times so that it can be recovered from any third party recovery software or just destroy the hard drive itself physically in this way your are safe that it won't be recovered. It is easy to recover files even if its deleted or even formatted I have tried a lot of software to recover files and I could it was very for this software to recover files.