Being a graphic designer, I sometimes use a network drives to share lot of images and flash files with our programmers. However, I have my own backup, and do not need those files on network drive and therefore would like to shred or delete them on a regular basis. How could your software help?

Yes, it’s possible to shred/overwrite data regularly from a network mapped drive provided you should install the software, REMO Shredder on the server. With the help of this software, you can schedule the shredding process to run at a specified time. If you want certain files or folders to be shredded regularly/ at specified time, then they can be added in the task list in scheduler and time and date can be specified so that those files/folders can be shredded at that particular time and date.

With REMO Shredder you can remove files from your network mapped drive without fear that they could be recovered. Today, in the market there are quite a few undelete software available for retrieval of deleted files under Windows OS. These tools, are taking advantage of shortcomings of the Windows “delete” command that we all use regularly to delete files. Actually, the “delete” operation in Windows only removes bits of information from files so they appear as deleted in OS. It is easy to retrieve these files using the aforementioned specialized undelete software.

In order to remove, or shred files permanently from your system you have to use a program that is capable of rewriting the files with random series of binary data, multiple times. This process is often called shredding. That way, the actual content of the file gets overwritten and the possibilities to recover such a shredded file are mostly theoretical.

REMO Shredder is one of the most powerful and advanced file shredding application, which allows various easy options to shred files, folders, and unused space from a logical drive. Because of its intuitive design and a simple user interface, you can safely and easily shred private data from your hard drive.

The software presents a hierarchical explorer view to select files and folders to shred. Simply add the files to the “shredding zone” and select the shredding patterns, and the software would do the rest.

Shredding Standards Offered by REMO Shredder

REMO Shredder supports several methods of shredding data or free disk space that are based on security levels. In general, if the data is overwritten several times, then the data recovery would be impossible. REMO Shredder use powerful algorithms like NATO, NAVSO, Peter Guttmann etc. that overwrite the data several times. Once these methods are used to wipe the data, then hardware recovery attempts also would fail.

REMO Shredder utility provides nine shredding methods

• Fast Zero Overwrite
• Random Overwrite
• US Department of Defense (DoD 5220.22-M)
• US Navy, NAVSO P-5239-26 – RLL
• North Atlantic Treaty Organization – NATO standard
• German:VSITR
• DOD Standard 5220.28 STD
• Peter Guttmann Secure Deletion
• US Department of Defense (DoD 5220.22-M) + Guttmann Method

Simple steps to shred data

Follow the simple steps explained below which guide you in using the software successfully, and shred the files efficiently.

Step 1: Launch REMO Shredder main application either from the desktop or from the Programs list in the Start menu. As soon as the application is launched, it loads the drives on the top left hand corner of the window, as shown in the figure. The main window of REMO Shredder is displayed, as shown in Figure a.

Figure a: Application Main Window

Step 2: Once the drives gets loaded in the left pane of the main window, select the drive that contains the file(s)/folder(s)  to be shredded beyond recovery. Select the files to be shredded, and add them to the shredding zone, either by dragging and dropping them, or by double clicking on the files. The selected files get added into the shredding zone, as shown in Figure b.

Figure b: Selected data in Shredding zone

Step 3: You can choose from the nine different shredding options provided by REMO Shredder. To select shredding methods, select Shredding Options either from the toolbar or from the Tools menu and select Shredding methods option. This would drop down the shredding methods that can be used to shred the data beyond recovery as shown in Figure c

Figure c: Shredding Methods

Step 4: Clicking the Shred file(s) and folder(s) button, will initiate the shredding process. The software makes use of the shredding method chosen by you, to overwrite the contents of the selected files. On completion of the shredding process, a message indicating the same will be displayed on the screen.

The data once erased using REMO Shredder cannot be recovered using any data recovery software.

Set the Scheduler

To set the scheduler, click on Shredding options button from the Tool bar or you can also choose this option from Tools->Shredding options-> Scheduler. Scheduler window is displayed as shown in Figure d.

Once you click on Shredding options button, you get a window as shown in Figure d.

Figure d: Shredding Options

Shredding options are listed on the left hand side of the window, select Scheduler from the list. As you click on the Scheduler option, you get Scheduler Window as shown in Figure e.

Figure e: Scheduler

Click on ‘Add file(s) or ‘Add folder(s) to add files and folders to schedulers task list. Once you add file(s)/ folder(s), you need to schedule the time for the shredding process. You can schedule the shredding process for a specific date and time, or you can schedule it to run at start up. Click on the OK button after configuring the scheduler settings.

If you want to remove any files and folders that have been added from this list then select the required file/folder and click Remove button. Then the file/folder would be removed from the scheduler list.

Tags: data shredder, delete file permanently, erase file, file eraser, file shredder, shred data