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Q: In trying to clean my computers I know that a deleted file isn’t really gone. It only has a wild card inserted in the name sequence.  Where do I go to fully eradicate a file or files completely? (Is there a DOS wildcard to search for them all? File name and extension)  

– Cliff G.
Odessa, Texas

A: This is one of those questions that seems to baffle many otherwise computer-savvy people.  You’re close in your analysis, Cliff.  It’s not a wild card, but the file’s entry in the disk’s allocation table is altered to indicate that no file exists.  That has the side effect of marking all the space on the drive that was allocated to the file as free, effectively deleting the file, but leaving the file’s contents intact on the drive.  There is no where you can go in DOS or Windows to see a list of deleted files (unless you put them in the Recycle Bin, which isn’t really deleting them).  Some commercial applications, such as the Norton Utilities will allow you to examine the unadulterated File Allocation Table on a drive, including the “deleted” entries.  The process of removing the data from deleted files is known as “wiping” a drive.  You can find lots of free tools online to perform a disk wipe by simply performing a web search on “disk wipe”.

Q: I’ve noticed I’ve deleted Yahoo Messenger from my computer and some the files for this IM program stay resident even after the program is deleted.  How do I completely get rid of this program and it’s pervasive data files?

– Cliff G.
Odessa, Texas

A: Yahoo! Messenger is supposed to be a well-behaved program that uninstalls via the standard Control Panel Add/Remove Programs utility.  If you find that it does not, you can try deleting it from the registry by running RegEdit and navigating to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ and deleting the entire Yahoo! key.  The usual caveats of being careful mucking about in the registry apply.  You can also try one of the many application uninstallers that are available, such as Revo Uninstaller.

Q: We have many video tapes that cannot be replaced. Our tape player recently started ‘eating’ these precious vids.  Is there a user friendly VCR to DVD program available to burn these classic films to a DVD? (I’m going to have to buy a new VCR device and want to be assured of my end product.)

– Cliff G.
Odessa, Texas

A: The term for what you want to do is called “digitizing”.  In other words, you want to take an analog videotape and convert it into a digital format stored on a DVD.  The words “user friendly” and “program” don’t usually appear together when you’re talking about this kind of work, as it can get quite complicated.  At a minimum you need digitizing hardware and software, video editing software, a compatible DVD burner and software, and a lot of computer horsepower driving the whole operation.  Since user friendliness is a priority for you, and since you have said you need to buy a new VCR anyway, my recommendation would be to go with a pure hardware-based solution.  You can purchase a VCR/DVD-R combination device that plays both tapes and discs, and allows you to copy between the two.  I don’t endorse specific products in the column, but if you search the web for “VCR to DVD converter” you’ll find what you’re looking for.