I need to know if emails and chats exchanged between two hotmail
addresses exclusively are still recoverable from a hard drive if they have been
deleted from the trash can and sent messages. I need to make it so
that they will never be recoverable even by a recovery company. I have
been told that hotmail doesn't save on your hard drive, but someone
else said it did, in the "free space" apparently. I have Windows Xp
and I'm a bit computer illiterate.

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Request for Question Clarification by mvguy-ga on 16 May 2004 22:17 PDT

Could you please tell what program you and your correspondent use to
read mail from your Hotmail accounts? (Chances are that you read your
mail through a Microsoft e-mail program such as Outlook or Outlook
Express, or that you read it using a browser such as Mozilla Firebird,
Internet Explorer or Opera). Also, which operating system (such as
Windows, Macintosh or Linux) are you using? Thanks.

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Clarification of Question by painter123-ga on 17 May 2004 11:49 PDT

I have Windows XP. When I access the internet I click on an icon that
says Internet Explorer. I do use Outlook Express for other exchanges,
but no emails or chats that are sensitive were exchanged on that
address, only between two hotmail addresses. My correspondent lives
abroad but his computer is of no consequence since it is his alone. My
computer is the only possibly compromised computer. I have been told
to use a DOD eraser, to change the hard drive, while others say not to
worry since hotmail is impossible to recover from a hard drive. What
do I do?!

do you have physical access to every computer that viewed the email/chat ?

Yes I do; it was only between my computer and one other. I am not
physically near it but the person with whom the emails and chats were
exchanged is completely cooperative. Thank you.

Items from web pages you've viewed may be held for some period of time
in your browser's "cache" (A.K.A. "Temporary Internet Files"), which
stores recent graphics and web pages for faster future retrieval.  In
your browser's preferences menu there should be an option to "clear
the cache" -- exactly where it is depends on which browser you use.

  In Internet Explorer, go to Tools -> Internet Options, and click the
"Delete Files" button in the "Temporary Internet Files" section.  To
make data erased from your disk absolutely irretrievable (even by a
recovery company), you might also want to run some free-space-clearing
utility after you clear the cache.  You'd want to encourage the
recipient of the e-mails to do the same.

  However, keep in mind that your e-mail was stored on Microsoft's
Hotmail servers, and just because you erased the message from your
Hotmail account doesn't mean it's completely gone from those servers. 
Backups of the message probably exist, since it's a safe bet Microsoft
makes backups of the Hotmail service for disaster recovery.  You
probably have no control over what happens to those backups, but at
least it's doubtful that they would be retained for a very long period
of time.  Perhaps you can find information about Hotmail's backup
policy (and about purging erased e-mails) on the Hotmail site itself.