In the past, we’ve shared several free utilities for Windows and Mac to wipe or delete data securely which includes all your confidential and private stuff. Big Angry Dog has released a new freeware ‘Hardwipe’ that allows users to permanently delete any desired contents from their hard drive to prevent the disposed data from being recovered ever.

Hardwipe is a 100% free program for Windows that offers various advanced features and options than just letting you securely wipe the data from your computer. It boasts a modern and easy-to-use interface, specially designed for Windows 7. With Hardwipe, one can wipe individual or multiple files, folders, an entire drive or partition. Additionally, it offers the ability to quickly Clean Free Drive Space to prevent anyone from recovering the old wiped data. It does so by overwriting the contents of previously deleted files. During Clean Space operation, the data presently stored on drive will not be wiped.

Hardwipe intelligently controls the disk writing speed for lengthy operations. When the ‘Speed Control’ is set to Automatic, it restricts disk writing considering the computer is being actively used, but increases it to maximum on being idle. You can always select "Full Speed" or "Restricted" from the main window to manually control the speed.

It integrates with Windows explorer that comes handy as you can quickly wipe files from right-click content menu. One can wipe a single file, multiple files or a folder simply by right-clicking. This is also possible for hard disk drives that can be wiped or cleaned.

Shell integration is disabled by default. To enable it, just open Hardwipe and go to Preferences > Options. Then select ‘Show Hardwipe Menus’ option and hit OK.

Key Features:

• Erases files by overwriting their contents prior to deletion.
• Integrates with Windows Explorer
• Supports major overwriting schemes, including: GOST P50739-95, DOD 5220.22-M, Schneier & Gutmann.
• Can even purge the Swapfile used by Windows (not available yet)
• Intelligent use of disk cache so that your computer remains responsive when cleaning entire drives
• Hardwipe can shutdown your computer automatically when finished 

Download Hardwipe  [Supports Windows 7, Vista, XP]

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• MiniTool Drive Copy – Free Disk Copy/Clone Tool
• Delete Files Securely with Free Wipe Wizard

Apple has just introduced a small app “Lion Recovery Disk Assistant” for Mac OS X Lion users that lets you create Lion Recovery on an external drive. Although, OS X Lion has ‘Lion Recovery’ integrated by default but the Recovery HD partition exists on the boot disk, thus making it pretty difficult to repair or reinstall Lion in case the hard drive fails. (Assuming you don’t have a Installation DVD of Lion or a Bootable flash drive).

The Lion Recovery Disk Assistant lets you create Lion Recovery on an external drive that has all of the same capabilities as the built-in Lion Recovery: reinstall Lion, repair the disk using Disk Utility, restore from a Time Machine backup, or browse the web with Safari. This drive can be used in the event you cannot start your computer with the built-in Recovery HD, or you have replaced the hard drive with a new one that does not have Mac OS X installed.

Requirements:

• A Mac running OS X Lion with an existing Recovery HD
• An external USB hard drive or thumb drive with at least 1GB of free space

Note: The Lion Recovery Disk Assistant will erase all data on the external drive when creating the Recovery HD. You should either backup your data before running the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant, or create a new partition on the external drive.

To create Lion Recovery on an external drive, download Lion Recovery Disk Assistant application on your Mac. Insert a USB flash drive or external hard drive, launch the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant, select the drive where you would like to install, and follow the on screen instructions. Check the below screenshots:

>> The new partition will not be visible in the Finder or Disk Utility. To access Lion Recovery, reboot your Mac while holding the Option key. Select Recovery HD from the Start-up Manager. The external Recovery drive is represented by a orange color icon.

Notes:

• If the computer shipped with Lion, the external recovery drive can only be used with the system that created it.

• If the system was upgraded from Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard to Lion, the external recovery drive can be used with other systems that were upgraded from Snow Leopard to Lion.

Source: Apple

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• Use Lion Recovery to Repair or Reinstall OS X Lion without a Install Disc
• Get EASEUS Partition Master Professional Edition 6.1.1 Full version for Free [Limited-time offer]
• Partition Wizard – Free Partition manager for Home & Business users
• How to Burn OS X Lion Install DVD or Create a Bootable USB Flash Drive
• Drive Manager – Manage hard disks, optical drives, USB

Steam by Valve is the world’s largest online gaming platform for PC and Mac that offers an incredible gaming experience. Steam has a huge library of popular games from many major publishers and has been connecting gamers from worldwide since its inception. Certainly, Steam is immensely popular with over 30 million active user accounts. Hence, here is a handy tip for those serious gamers using Steam.

Steam client from Windows and Mac allows users to browse, purchase and download their favorite games. Steam installs itself in the C:\Program Files\Steam directory by default and games installed on Steam are stored in the ..\Steam\steamapps\ folder. Perhaps, if your system partition (i.e. C drive) is running out of space or you need to do a clean installation of Windows or you’re moving to a new computer, then it is advisable to Move Steam Installation and Games to a different location on your PC.

This can be easily done and helps you prevent the risk of loosing all your large sized games downloaded via Steam if the worse were to happen. Carefully follow the steps described below to Transfer Steam entirely to a different partition or hard drive. The following instructions will move your Steam installation along with your games:

Important: It is highly recommended that you create a backup of your SteamApps folder before attempting this process.

1. Log out and Exit the Steam client from system tray in Windows.

2. Navigate to the folder where Steam is installed (by default: C:\Program Files\Steam\)

3. Just cut and paste the mentioned file and folders (steamapps folder, userdata folder and steam.exe file) to the new specified location, for example: D:\Steam\

4. After transferring of files gets completed, delete the Steam folder from C: drive.

5. Launch Steam.exe, it will update to re-download just the steam files (around 30MB).

Now log into your account and continue using Steam from the new location. Also, all the future game content will be downloaded to the new folder D:\Steam\Steamapps\.

Note: For installed games, you may need to verify your game cache files. To do so,

1. Open Steam client, go to Library section, right-click on the game and select Properties from the menu.

2. Select the ‘Local files’ tab and click the Verify integrity of game cache… button.

3. Steam will verify the game’s files – this process may take several minutes. Once the process is completed, the Check window will automatically exit. That’s it!

>> Similarly, you can move Steam to any other computer running Windows OS. (You can only be logged into Steam on one computer at a time.)

Tip: “During the installation of Steam, you have the option to install Steam to a location other than the default. Since Steam relies on the game files residing in the SteamApps folder, your game files will go to whatever folder you have Steam installed in.”

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OS X Lion 10.7 comes with a completely new interface and introduces over 250 new features to offer an amazing experience on a Mac. One great and handy new feature integrated to Lion is ‘Lion Recovery’. Upon installing OS X Lion, it automatically creates a 650 MB sized recovery partition called “Recovery HD”, a new feature that lets you repair disks or reinstall OS X Lion without the need for a physical installation disc.

Lion Recovery is a built in feature on Lion, so you can easily restore system software to your Mac anytime in just a few clicks, without having to bother for install discs or drives. With Recovery HD, you can run Disk Utility to check or repair your hard drive, erase your hard drive and reinstall a fresh copy of Lion, or restore your Mac from a Time Machine backup. One can even use Safari to get help from Apple Support online.

To use Lion Recovery – Hold down Command-R during startup to boot into the Recovery HD, or hold down the Option key during startup and select Recovery HD.

Internet Recovery

If your Mac problem is a little less common — your hard drive has failed or you’ve installed a hard drive without OS X, for example — Internet Recovery takes over automatically. It downloads and starts Lion Recovery directly from Apple servers over a broadband Internet connection. And your Mac has access to the same Lion Recovery features online. Internet Recovery is built into every newly-released Mac starting with the Mac mini and MacBook Air.

via [iClarified]

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Nowadays, USB Flash devices (Pen drives, memory cards) play a prime role in spreading virus, malware, trojan, worms, spyware over various computers. When a removable device is infected with malware, its ‘autorun.inf’ file is normally modified to execute the malware when it is connected or whenever the user double-clicks the infected drive.

No Autorun is a small portable tool, which can Disable Autorun and Blocks virus in USB flash/disk from auto-running. When a USB disk is inserted, this tool not only locks the autorun.inf file, but also locks all the autorun-related virus and other suspicious files.

How to use -

• After you run "No Autorun", the program waits for USB disk/flash insertion. Once you insert a USB disk, the program locks suspicious files in it, for example, autorun.inf file and other related executable files.

• If you want to delete these files, just open the main window and click "Delete Autorun Files" or "Delete All". DO NOT try to delete them from explorer or elsewhere because they are LOCKED by "No Autorun". If you want to open one of these files, just open the main window, click the file and click "Unlock".

• If you can’t determine that whether the suspicious files are virus or not, just leave them there. "No Autorun" locked them so that they can’t be executed and harm you computer.

It also has "USB disk soft write protect" function, which when enabled makes the connected USB disk as read-only. On enabling it, you’ll not be able to transfer any data to flash drive or delete its contents. It’s useful when your PC is already infected but you don’t want to spread the virus to your USB flash drives.

Download No Autorun Free (41 KB)

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• Download Free USB Firewall to protect your computer from infected Pen Drives
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Do you want to backup all the data stored on your HDD to another internal/external hard drive or want to replace your older smaller hard disk with a new larger hard disk, without having to install the Operating System, applications and device drivers once again? Then check the tutorial below:

Using Disk Clone, you can create a exact copy of one Hard drive to another hard drive keeping all the partitions and data intact as they were in the original (source) disk. There are several applications to clone disk but I’ll discuss the one I just tried out.

EASEUS Todo Backup is free backup software that offers safe and efficient disk clone to transfer your data on the old disk to a new one and backup your system in case of computer crash or system failure. It’s very easy to use and can copy the entire data from one hard disk to another in just a few clicks and in short time.

Before proceeding, make sure:

• The new hard drive is attached and working. (See Disk drives under Device manager).
• You’re aware which disk is source and which is destination.
• The new (destination) hard drive does not contains any data because it’ll be wiped.
• The media used as destination should be of the same size as the source media or larger to ensure that all data will be copied.

Follow the step-by-step instructions below to clone disk:

1. Download and Install EASEUS Todo Backup (Freeware).

2. Launch the program and select the “Clone Disk” option.

3. Select the source hard disk and click ‘Next’ to continue.

4. Select the destination disk and click ‘Next’ to continue. (Destination disk is the place where all the data from source disk will be copied).

5. Review the source disk and the destination disk layout (partitions and unallocated space). Click ‘Next’ to continue.

6. The disk cloning process will now start. Wait for it to get successfully completed.

7. Click OK and you can then check both the disks in Disk Management.

Now you can connect the destination hard drive on any PC and use it instantly without installing Windows OS and other freaking software’s and drivers.

This guide comes handy when your hard drive goes Bad and is ready to fail. Just buy a new hard drive of same or big size and use the above tutorial to create a replicate of it.Related Posts:

• EASEUS Todo Backup – Free Backup Solution for Windows
• MiniTool Drive Copy – Free Disk Copy/Clone Tool
• Get EASEUS Partition Master Professional Edition 6.1.1 Full version for Free [Limited-time offer]
• Partition Wizard – Free Partition manager for Home & Business users
• Download Paragon Backup & Recovery 10 Free Edition

Acronis has developed a free and useful tool which notifies users about their hard drive condition and helps them prevent the loss of most important and invaluable data stored on their HDD, which can occur in case the Hard disk fails.

Acronis Drive Monitor is a Free Hard Drive Monitoring Tool which monitors and determines the health of your hard disk drives installed on server, workstation and PCs. It is always advisable to check the health status of your Hard disk regularly because sometimes Hard drives fail after 2-3 yrs or before without giving any notification.

Key Benefits:

• Automatically checks for disk problems – Monitors state and health of physical drives via S.M.A.R.T. parameters (including temperature, seek error rate, spin-up time and more than 20 other indicators) and displays the status
• Monitors critical events that indicate a risk to data safety – Unless noticed early, these problems may become more severe and lead to partial or complete data loss
• Automatically receive warning alerts – Get immediate notification of early warnings of drive malfunctions in order that preventive actions can be taken
• State of disk backups – Be alerted if your latest backup has failed or if you haven’t created a backup for a while.
• Weekly status Reports – Stay current about electromechanical health of all drives with weekly reports.

Download Here  (17.4 MB)      via [TroubleFixers]

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Folder Size is a small but powerful FREE utility which allows users to easily locate the large sized files and folders residing on their Windows system. It analyzes your hard drives and display the file and folder sizes in different charts – Bar Chart, Pie Chart etc.

Charts shows the size of the folders and files in percentage, so that you can easily check the distribution of your disk space. The application can scan entire hard drive in minutes due to its optimized scan algorithms. Besides scanning an entire hard drive Folder Size can also scan a single folder in order to save time. It also shows all the hidden files and folders from your HDD and will scan the sizes of all the subfolders.

Supports: All Microsoft Windows

Download Folder Size

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