storm@marlin.ssnet.com wrote: _______________________________________________________________________ I presently use Xtree Gold. It has a DoD and 6 pass Wash Disk feature for writing over usused areas of a disk/drive. So far I have been unsucessfull at recovering any data after Wash Disk with Norton Utilities or PC Tools. If there is a weakness in Wash Disk I'd like to hear about it. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Actually XtreeGold doesn't wipe disks very well. It simply creates a file in (in root) as big as there is free space on the disk. This is fine provided the file have rubbish in it - but with XTG its all blank.... wash you disks then do and undelete from root and you will find a (usually large) file. Look at it - its all blank.... Because the data is all blank (zeros) an anomalie search would produce probably ALL of the data that was there originally..... I have a program (written by me) that writes pseudo-random mess to the disk for a specified number of times. I am also working on another program which clears any data that remians in the last clusters of a file (i.e. past the EOF point). DOS 7 will do this automoatically I'm told (haven't lood and the beta is too messy to bother with). Chris P.S. Sorry for extra spaces in the quoting... my comm prrogram is somewhat broken....