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This is no surprise. Deleting a file doesn't remove it from the drive, it just removes the reference to it that enables the operating system to retrieve it. That has been common information for years. A deleted file will remain there, accessible for recovery by a computer expert, until some other file happens to overwrite it, or part of it.

There are programs available for overwriting deleted files. I haven't looked recently, but they certainly used to be easily available. They may or may not remove deleted files completely, but they are said to be effective.

Frankly, unless you sell a used hard drive to a criminal hacker or unless you belong to the Mafia or are a secret agent for a foreign power, must people really don't need to worry about this kind of thing.

The latest version of Norton Utilities no longer has "wipe info" which I used for years with the slow, but supposedly effective "government wipe" setting.

I believe Norton has a utility to clean wipe a disk by wiping the free space or the entire disk. Either method, the user is allowed to choose the type of wiping, standard or government secure.

http://howto.lycos.com/lycos/step/1,,10+59+26168+25621+19937,00.html