Augeas
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Posts
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Posts posted by Augeas
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Thanks Dennis. I didn't mention why anyone would want to remove a restore point out of sequence, or really why one would want to remove any at all, unless desperate for space. But as there's the option to do so then someone will. In fact I did when the option came out. Meddling fingers.
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Yep, thanks Hazel.
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The $ files are NTFS meta files and should not be touched under any circumstances, especially the MFT Mirror, which is fixed in the centre of the drive (and is also very small).
On my spouse's laptop I used Pagedfrg from Microsoft, this defrags page, hiber and registry files on startup. It took a long time sitting there (over an hour, I think) but did the job fine. You'll have to search M/S pages or Google to find it as I don't know the link.
In fact pagedfrg is a shining example to code writers, peanuts small download, no-frills, just does its stuff.
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Well, you could always have a look. Zero-byte file names are displayed, although most of mine are blank, or a number, or something unusual. I've never knowingly securely deleted a zero byte file (although I'm sure it must have happened) so I can't say what the result is.
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Not if you do a normal scan. If you do a deep scan than my experience is that even after a low-level format then files from a previous install are found. Well, some of them are. Whether you would find any old files depends on the use of the disk. If he was a light user and you are the Prince of Downloads then it's quite possible that your data has overwritten everything that existed before, and vice-versa.
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Probably not, if your pc can't see the drive. Just try it, download and run Recuva. If the drive is not in the drop-down box on the left then you're out of luck. If it is there then tick the Scan for non-deleted files box in Options/Actions.
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What list is this? I scan cookies, there is a list. I run CC with IE and FF cookies boxes ticked. The cookies disappear. Are you getting some other behaviour?
There have been some recent threads about deleting cookies. I haven't looked at them but a search may be rewarding.
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Try running Recuva with either View Mode set to Treee View, or Options/Actions/Restore Folder Structure ticked.
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Microsoft pages for both XP and Vista say that the MFT never releases deleted file slots, so the MFT never reduces in size, whatever application you use. I have read that there is some relative addressing used (i.e. slot 14, second row etc.) so that those free slots in the MFT can't be reclaimed, but how true that is I don't know.
NTFS is so complex, and finding digestible info about its workings is so difficult, that I can never be sure that what I say is correct. I'm sure that Piriform knows quite a lot, but aren't going to give any secrets away.
I've no idea what Eraser does.
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A normal scan (not deep scan) of Recuva will show deleted file names held in the MFT. Slots in the MFT holding deleted file names are never removed, just overwritten when new files and directories are created. So there will always be something in the MFT slot for a deleted file. The common way of neutering the deleted file names is to allocate a number of new files with bland names which overwrites the MFT entries, then delete them.
I've never felt the need to run CC wipe free space but I don't think it clears the deleted file names from the MFT in the manner just described. Unfortunately none of the wipe free space users has ever posted any info on this for some reason. Until they do, this might be the reason you're still seeing deleted file names with Recuva. That's assuming those file names are names you recognise, not 'fillers'.
I wouldn't put too much faith into the file state, being recoverable or unrecoverable. All deleted files that can be found are recoverable to a greater or lesser extent, it's just that some have rubbish in them and some have the original contents. Poor old Piriform software is trying to make an educated guess at which is which.
Gutmann overwrites do not apply to wipe free space - you get one pass of zeroes. There's a great swell of opinion on this forum that one overwrite is perfectly adequate, Gutmann is irrelevant.
(All this assuming XP or Vista using NTFS)
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Yes, if you choose Restore Folder Structure in Recuva options then the full directory path is indeed restored, but with the date of the restore of course. I guess that this is because you're creating a new folder, and Windows is not going to let any common or garden application write data in the MFT.
As far as I understand the myriad complexities of NTFS the directory has an entry in the MFT as well as the files, and would have a date created timestamp. However Recuva doesn't show directory entries as seperate entities: whether they can't be or Recuva doesn't think it serves any point is not anything I can pontificate on. I would think that as the folder structure can be restored then there's no mileage in trying to patch together an old directory entry. I think you have to concede that a request to reinstate the create date of a directory is rare, I've never come across it here before.
Date modifed is of course pointless, it will be the date the files were deleted.
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I think you only have to tick the 'email me if there's a response' box once on the first post, if you're a thread starter anyway.
I also think that CC does the equivalent of a shift/del to the files it's removing, and a rename, overwrite, and shift/del to those it's securely deleting. The question of saving what's been deleted has been raised before. As CC generally cleans temporary files only then it's not likely to remove anything that's essential to an application's operation. I consider that I'm a moderate pc user and I clean about 50 mb every few days (mostly surf stuff) so the recycler would soon become a large incomprehensible melange of unidentifiable files.
Ther registry is another thing, and I assume you're not discussing that specifically, as you mention files. The registry changes are, or can be, backed up and restored of course.
A monthly or so backup always produces a nice warm feeling. Which reminds me, I must do one.
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The deleted doc and pic that Recuva found might have the folder name in the Info tab, or set the View Mode in Options/General to Tree.
I don't know any way of getting the folder creation date back.
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Not with CC. Have you considered using Recuva? Are you asking a hypothetical question?
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No. CCleaner only operates on the system c drive. You can delete stuff from the flash drive, then scan with Recuva and secure overwrite what you find if you wish, but it is a little fiddly.
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No miracles, but if you type in "cannot display the webpage" (with quotes) or "server unexpectedly dropped the connection" safari (just like that) in Google you will find you are not alone. One poster said that 'i followed some of the MS Help & Support advice & 're-Registered Internet Explorer DLLs', which seems to have worked for me' on IE, so you could start there. I don't know what the re-registering process is though, maybe Google will come to the rescue there too.
Did you do a registry clean, and did you 'Fix all Issues'? If so I would hold off doing it again.
PS Oh bum, no Google. I think you need a friend with another pc to do the lookups.
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I've tried to overwrite an individual non-deleted file - just for the fun of it - and Recuva smacks your wrist. But then again there's no point in tempting providence and no real point in including non-deleted files in the scan, so it would be wise not to.
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Seventy-two and a half meg for a 'personal' disk copy app? That's more than I downloaded to go to SP3. What do they write code in these days, hieroglyphics? It's about time Piriform took over the world.
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What would happen if you ran a normal scan, ticked the checkbox to check all files, and then ran secure overwrite?
If your secure overwrite option is set to one overwrite, you would have to wait for some time. If you have some other (and quite unneccessary) option, you would have to wait seemingly forever.
Would it cause any problems on your pc? I shouldn't think so, but there again I've never done this. If you have a lot of deleted files (hundreds of thousands) then you might run out of resources, but I don't know how Recuva works.
If you run a deep scan and do a total overwrite then you might as well take a few days off while the sun is shining.
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I can't see why CC would cause this behaviour, what response are you getting? Page hang, 404, or some other error?
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I believe, from an early post by one of the developers, that wipe free space uses one pass of zeroes whatever is coded in the secure delete option, or indeed if it is set to normal deletion.
One overwrite pass is quite sufficient for erasing data permanently: there's plenty to read in the forum on this topic. Thirtyfive passes is, and always has been, a waste of time. Please don't ask why as it's been done to death here, just Google.
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Well, it can be rather irritating to open an thread and find that it originated in the precambrian period. The resurrector is replying to someone who posted over two and a half years ago, so they are hardly likely to be still waiting for an answer. The software version is also antique by now. It's much better if one has anything new to say to create a new thread, and in the right forum - this isn't Lounge material.
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Another thread has sparked a few brain cells off as usual, this time on the way that CC's system restore maintenance facility operates. What are the consequences of removing restore points out of sequence, or just at will? Is this a valid option, and does it affect System Restore's capability to complete a system restore, should one be needed?
It's actually quite difficult to discover what sys restore does, at a very low level. We know that Windows lets us either disable system restore completely, limit the space allocated to restore points, or remove all restore points except the latest. What Windows doesn't let us do is remove any individual restore point. Googling this stuff brings up a great many posts and articles concerning removing individual restore points. Most of them recite a version of the following mantra, I believe originally from Bert Kinney.
Each restore point is chained (or linked) together with previous restore points. When you choose to restore a system all the previous restore points are required to complete the restore, thus if one is missing the chain will be broken and cause all existing restore points to become corrupt.
A log is created or updated that tracks the consistency between the files System Restore is monitoring and the files that are actually backed up. If an inconsistency is found between the log file and the files located in the System Volume Information folder, restore point corruption can occur.
So that pretty well puts the kybosh on removing individual restore points. But is this another Gutmann myth? After all restore points are dropped after 90 days, or when the allocated space is filled. How does that correspond with requiring all previous restore points to do a restore?
I have found this from Microsoft. It's tantalisingly not quite specific, but gives some idea of the process. UI, by the way, is presumably User Interface and there are five restore points (RP) in the example.
1) UI queries data stores for list of restore points
2) Restore points displayed in UI - user makes selection of RP2
3) Restore point created for restore operation via service
4) UI calls Restore Module to start restore
5) Restore Module extracts all file changes recorded in change logs up to RP2
6) Restore Module reverts the system based on recorded changes logged and replaces RP2 registry
The vital point is number 5 - all file changes recorded in change logs up to RP2. Does that mean that you need all previous restore points? I find it hard to grasp that you should need any information prior to the time of the restore point at all.
So what is the validity of removing an individual restore point? Can a system restore be done subsequently from a point before or after the missing point? I'm sure Piriform would have tested this. And if Piriform is correct then that's another myth nailed to the floor. I like that.
Long post I'm afraid. The inelegantly named Britain's Got Talent (Talent?) is on the box so I'm out of it.
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I don't think that Windows will allow the most recent restore point to be removed, unless you disable sys restore entirely.
Replace 'I don't think' with 'I'm just about positively sure'.
Whether the previous version of CC actually did this I'm not foolish enough to try. In any event by the time you've made certain you want to remove the capability of ever doing a system restore Windows comes along and creates another daily checkpoint. To have a facility to do daily checkpoints and then remove them daily seems er, pointless.
CCleaner vs. Recuva
in CCleaner
Posted
What happens when you set the Recuva options to show zero length files, and then run a scan?