Marco POLO Posted April 17, 2010 Share Posted April 17, 2010 (edited) Few days back, I tried, as I already did it once before, to clean both my internal (where I keep my operating systems) and external (where I keep all of my docs) hard disks free space with CrapCleaner. At first, after this operation, I thought my external disk was out of use. Then, after several tests, I found out that, although this external disk properties were indicating 0 ko both as capacity and occupied space, all clusters were visible on a specific program and that, most probably, only the FAT (or is it the Root Directory ?) had been erased. Also I downloaded and tried to install Recuva (in French): each time I tried, this install was interrupted by a message indicating there was a problem in the language\language file: is this a bug or a personal computer problem ? NB: I have been using CrapCleaner and Defraggler for quite a long time now without any problem so far. System used: Windows XP Media Center SP3. Edit: According to CrapCleaner (or CCleaner, if you prefer), Recuva is missing a MUI Reference (???) ! Edited April 17, 2010 by Marco POLO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aethec Posted April 17, 2010 Share Posted April 17, 2010 Try installing it in English. It installs all the languages anyway, so you'll be able to choose French when it's installed. Piriform French translator Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marco POLO Posted April 19, 2010 Author Share Posted April 19, 2010 Try installing it in English. It installs all the languages anyway, so you'll be able to choose French when it's installed. ...Thanks for your answer. This is what I intended to do, but I waited for a confirmation before doing so... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marco POLO Posted May 1, 2010 Author Share Posted May 1, 2010 ...Thanks for your answer. This is what I intended to do, but I waited for a confirmation before doing so... In fact, I didn't have time to reinstall Recuva 'till this day. I Tried again tonight with the new version: Recuva 1.37.488 > Installation worked fine. I'll let you know what happens next. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marco POLO Posted May 3, 2010 Author Share Posted May 3, 2010 In fact, I didn't have time to reinstall Recuva 'till this day. I Tried again tonight with the new version: Recuva 1.37.488 > Installation worked fine. I'll let you know what happens next. Well, it seems like I DO HAVE A PROBLEM: After my last message, Saturday evening, I ran Recuva with advanced search all night long to find the following message the next day: "Estimated remaining time... 37 days" !!! So I tried again yesterday afternoon with the same advanced search feature: according to the mentioned estimated remaining time, the scan should have been over by 6.30 AM: at 10.00, it was still stuck on 83% completed with an estimated remaining time of 4 hours (scanning free space ?). So I clicked on the small window upper right x button (and not on the cancel button) to shut it off. After a while, as nothing showed (just two .jpg files of less than 100 ko), I had to go in the options and check every one of them to see appear over 14.600 files all named with ZZZs: is this normal ??? Finding myself unable to open these files (I even tried with 7-Zip), I started a new scan of this 500 Go external hard drive of which only about 1/3 is occupied. However, when I did not use this computer during the two first scans, I am writing you while the third one is going on. If any one has more accurate informations, please feel welcome to give them to me as I am going blind folded. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aethec Posted May 3, 2010 Share Posted May 3, 2010 Files named with ZZZ are files overwritten by CCleaner's Wipe Free Space thing. Piriform French translator Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marco POLO Posted May 3, 2010 Author Share Posted May 3, 2010 Files named with ZZZ are files overwritten by CCleaner's Wipe Free Space thing. As I said in my first message: ...I tried, as I already did it once before, to clean both my internal (where I keep my operating systems) and external (where I keep all of my docs) hard disks free space with CrapCleaner. ... ...So would it mean that, instead of only wiping off my Files Allocation Table on that external hard disk, CCleaner would also have erased the whole of my files ??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aethec Posted May 4, 2010 Share Posted May 4, 2010 It has erased the files that were already deleted - that's the point of Wipe Free Space (in french "Nettoyer l'espace libre"). The only case where WFS is useful is if you plan to sell your computer (to make sure no data is recoverable). If you didn't tick the WFS checkbox, that's a bug in CCleaner - please open a new thread in the CCleaner Bug Reporting forum Piriform French translator Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marco POLO Posted May 4, 2010 Author Share Posted May 4, 2010 Dear Aethec, Many thanks for your steadiness in trying to help me out. It has erased the files that were already deleted... ...I 'm afraid this was not the case: my files HAD NOT been deleted before this "Free Space Wipe Out"... The best proof is that after I ticked all the options before initializing my third and last scan last night, I could find all of my initial files again today: I am recovering them right now on my main computer while I'm answering you from my portable PC > remaining time before complete recovery: about 3 1/2 hours... ... that's the point of Wipe Free Space (in french "Nettoyer l'espace libre"). ...I'm fully aware of what "Wipe Free Space" means (more over, my CrapCleaner software IS in French)... ...The only case where WFS is useful is if you plan to sell your computer (to make sure no data is recoverable)... ...No, not only: it is also useful in cleaning a hard disk of its "pseudo" erased files (their address on the Hard Disk has been removed from the File Allocation Table but they still are physically on the disk) > It also helps running the disk faster if it has properly been defragmented afterwards... If you didn't tick the WFS checkbox, that's a bug in CCleaner - please open a new thread in the CCleaner Bug Reporting forum ...It PROBABLY IS a bug in CrapCleaner: once I have recovered the whole of my files, I will definitely open a new thread in the CCleaner Bug Reporting forum. As I have found, among my recovered files, one of them still containing ZZZ files, would you know of a way to recover these ??? TO ALL READERS OF THIS TOPIC: BEFORE RUNNING RECUVA, MAKE SURE YOU TICK ALL OPTIONS MENTIONED IN THE INTERFACE RIGHT TOP BUTTON. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aethec Posted May 4, 2010 Share Posted May 4, 2010 ...I 'm afraid this was not the case: my files HAD NOT been deleted before this "Free Space Wipe Out"... The best proof is that after I ticked all the options before initializing my third and last scan last night, I could find all of my initial files again today: I am recovering them right now on my main computer while I'm answering you from my portable PC > remaining time before complete recovery: about 3 1/2 hours... Then it is a bug in CCleaner ; unless you have set some folders to include and have selected to overpass the files with data to make then unrecoverable, it should'nt do that. ...No, not only: it is also useful in cleaning a hard disk of its "pseudo" erased files (their address on the Hard Disk has been removed from the File Allocation Table but they still are physically on the disk) > It also helps running the disk faster if it has properly been defragmented afterwards... No. Wipe Free Space does NOT, in any case, improve performance. It can't. Piriform French translator Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marco POLO Posted May 4, 2010 Author Share Posted May 4, 2010 Then it is a bug in CCleaner ; unless you have set some folders to include and have selected to overpass the files with data to make then unrecoverable, it should'nt do that. ..Yes, it is (a bug in CCleaner) and no, I haven't (set some folders to include and have selected to overpass the files with data to make then unrecoverable): I wouldn't know how to do it ! No. Wipe Free Space does NOT, in any case, improve performance. It can't. ...At least, it prevents the processor to look here, there and everywhere when you request a file !!! Now, for your information, it looks like I eventually could recover all the files I wanted on a different external disk: if not, I'll let you know later on, but I doubt I will have to do so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aethec Posted May 5, 2010 Share Posted May 5, 2010 ..Yes, it is (a bug in CCleaner) and no, I haven't (set some folders to include and have selected to overpass the files with data to make then unrecoverable): I wouldn't know how to do it ! Please post a bug report in the CCleaner section then ...At least, it prevents the processor to look here, there and everywhere when you request a file !!! No. Neither the processor nor the OS can make the difference between "deleted file" and "securely deleted file". In NTFS, all files positions are stored in the MFT - if Windows wants to access C:\foo\bar.txt, it will search the MFT for it, find it is in cluster 12345, and then tell the disk to look into cluster 12345. Wiping free space doesn't improve performance - period. Piriform French translator Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marco POLO Posted May 8, 2010 Author Share Posted May 8, 2010 Sorry for the delay in answering: I'm still recovering my lost files and more over, Recuva as replicated them with both the original name and the same with "_1", sometimes before the extension, sometimes after: obliged to clean up the whole disk !!! Please post a bug report in the CCleaner section then ...Already done along with my last post in this topic. No. Neither the processor nor the OS can make the difference between "deleted file" and "securely deleted file".In NTFS, all files positions are stored in the MFT - if Windows wants to access C:\foo\bar.txt, it will search the MFT for it, find it is in cluster 12345, and then tell the disk to look into cluster 12345. Wiping free space doesn't improve performance - period. ...You quite surprise me, here ! I admit I'm an autodidact in informatics, but from what I learned from all the forums and tutorials that I now read from quite a few years, as well as from some very experienced friends, I've always thought that replacing erased files binary names (octets) by "00-00-00-00" would make them disappear. Also, Defragler allowing to defragment free space looked to me as a supplementary guarantee. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aethec Posted May 8, 2010 Share Posted May 8, 2010 ...You quite surprise me, here ! I admit I'm an autodidact in informatics, but from what I learned from all the forums and tutorials that I now read from quite a few years, as well as from some very experienced friends, I've always thought that replacing erased files binary names (octets) by "00-00-00-00" would make them disappear. Also, Defragler allowing to defragment free space looked to me as a supplementary guarantee. When Defraggler defrags free space, it moves all non-deleted files at the beginning of the drive in order to have the largest possible contiguous amount of free space. Besides, the MFT works in such a way that the only way to delete a file name in it is to recreate files until it is erased - in fact, it's much like a disk : when you want to write something, it will be written in the first free space found. Here, "free space" means anything deleted. Windows can't make a difference between a deleted file, and a lot of zeroes. Piriform French translator Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marco POLO Posted May 9, 2010 Author Share Posted May 9, 2010 Thanks for the time you take to give me all these informations. When Defraggler defrags free space, it moves all non-deleted files at the beginning of the drive in order to have the largest possible contiguous amount of free space. ...'till there, I get it... Besides, the MFT works in such a way that the only way to delete a file name in it is to recreate files until it is erased... ...I guess you mean by overwriting on top of them... ...in fact, it's much like a disk : when you want to write something, it will be written in the first free space found. Here, "free space" means anything deleted. ...I still follow... Windows can't make a difference between a deleted file, and a lot of zeroes. ...This where I'm getting lost: I'll have to take new lessons ! By the way, do you have an idea of how I can decipher/decode the ZZZ files I recovered ??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aethec Posted May 9, 2010 Share Posted May 9, 2010 If the files were overwritten (and not only their names), you will never be able to recover them. Piriform French translator Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marco POLO Posted May 9, 2010 Author Share Posted May 9, 2010 If the files were overwritten (and not only their names), you will never be able to recover them. ...I must admit you're quite comforting/reassuring... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marco POLO Posted May 15, 2010 Author Share Posted May 15, 2010 (edited) Hey, everyone, It finally looks like I lost quite a lot of files in this recovery operation. Hopefully, I had saved most of them about two months before the crash, but quite a lot of important registered documents since are missing !!! Maybe these ZZZ files ??? Edited May 15, 2010 by Marco POLO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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