Windows XP restore points and wiping
Well somebody else asked the question but the thread went suicidal.. I'm not as paranoid as everybody else, so here is the answer to what the XP restore point stores. Check this technet article, and the file listed at the bottom-
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;281842
specifically- Windir\System32\Restore\Filelist.xml
The XML file is broken down into three segments: Files, Directories, and extensions.
For each segment it contains those items to include, and to exclude. So as you can see by default very little personal data should be stored in a system restore. It excludes most document and profile information, and the only extensions included are programs and things of the like. Docs, pictures, adobe PDF, and other standard file formats for storing data are not included in the system restore.
As to how antivirus and cleanup tools impact system restore. In my experience if the cleanup utility does not specifically have an option to "wipe" system restore it doesn't know about system restore. BCwipe and some of the other utilities mentioned in the original question have options to delete system restore points.
Windows XP disk cleanup and restore points- http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;310312
As far as how good are disk wiping utilities. Most of them if they can do multiple wipes with a Peter-Gutmann wipe algorithm are going to be very effective. I'm sure there are some cheap software wipers out there that say they are doing a 7 overwrite wipe, and don't, but the ones mentioned in the original question do the trick.