Will format hard drive or wipe free space destroy secure zone?

Hi

Clearly I don't want to lose my SZ, but if I ever do either of the following:-

a.) Format the hard drive,
b.) Wipe free space and cluster tips etc using a program like Eraser/Cyberscrub etc...

Will I definitely lose the SZ with either a.) or b.)?

Currently I have only the one C:\ Drive. It is not split into more then the one partition - except of course for the SZ.

There are times for example with financial records, for security purposes I would rather erase these securely, then delete them from the recycle bin!

Howard

 

Formatting your C: drive will not affect the SZ as SZ is a separate partition. Similarly if you run a program to wipe freespace and cluster tips you will again be specifying c: drive so it will not affect the SZ.

By the way, it's not a good idea to have the SZ or any backup for that matter on your one and only drive. All you need is for the drive to fail and you have lost everything including your backup.

 

Hi PJB

Thanks for that info. Very handy and useful for me to know!

What you say also makes a lot of sense re backup. While I have my data backed up in the SZ zone of my C: drive, I do have an external hard drive with about 120 gig space, where I backed up the data also.

I didn't bother with a secure zone zone with the external drive. I also save complete rather then incremental backups, as there is loads of spare space. I backed up one full backup onto CD also - just in case (about 5 CDS needed).

Thanks again

Howard

 

Hi Howard

You should be able to sleep at night knowing you have several layers of security.

Good luck

Paul