Augeas

It's true that Recuva doesn't have the ability to delete files held in their entirety in the MFT. I understand that some disk washeres, such as Eraser, can overwrite these MFT entries. They do this by first filling the entire disk with large temp files, then allocating small temp files until the MFT is full, then deleting all they have created. They have to do this as the MFT never releases its used slots and never shrinks in size (in XP, not too sure about Vista). You can do this yourself by creating enough temp files of more than 1k in a series of temp folders so that eventually all the entries in the MFT will be allocated a dummy file name and the contents overwritten. (Keep checking with Recuva.) Then delete the lot. This is mimicking the disk washer techniques, but without doing the whiole disk. Of course you'll have to keep doing this as new files resident in the MFT are created. Or do what I do, ignore them.

How large are the files you are seeing with Recuva?

Do you mean that you want CC to run the compress old files function? Just do it under windows, it will take fewer than half-a-dozen mouse clicks and only needs doing once in a blue moon, and then only if you're desperate for space.

In order of annoyance: Use Recuva standard scan, check all files, and use secure deletion to overwrite previously deleted files pointed to by the MFT. Fast. Not comprehensive. Doesn't touch small files held entirely in the MFT. Use Recuva deep scan to find all files in the MFT and all file fragments on the disk. Check all files, and use secure deletion to overwrite. Overwrites all files on the disk, but deep scan is a long process, as is I assume the overwrite. Doesn't touch small files held entirely in the MFT. Use CCleaner wipe free space. Overwrites all free space on the disk and ipso facto all previously deleted files. Thorough, but takes yonks to run to completion. Possibly overwrites small files held entirely in the MFT, but I've never run it so can't be sure. There may be other incriminating material held in the pagefile, hiberfile, syslogs etc which the overwriting process doesn't touch. Most will go with continued use of your pc. Your ISP, and thus our liberal government, know where you've been anyway but you're not that important, are you?

By unrecoverable we mean, of course, that they will be recoverable but will contain none of the original data, incriminating or otherwise. CC secure deletion overwrites the file names but leaves folder info in some cases: Recuva secure deletion leaves the file names and folder info untouched.

The pics that you have already recovered and are openable and OK are fine, save those to the flash drive for the moment but leave them on the hard disk as well. The pics you have recovered and aren't openable are probably lost, unless someone has an idea for fixing them. A deep scan might produce further copies of the unopenable pics (and copies of those that are good as well). It's just another chance to recover those lost pics. On the very rare times I have run deep scan I've found that it finds versions of files I've never deleted, presumably from edits, moves, defrags, or other activity. So it's worth the effort to try. If you do find them then recover to the flash drive until you've come to the end of your pics or patience. Then you can write them to a cd for more permanent backup. On reflection I think that in any reccovery case it would be a good idea to delete temp internet files immediately from the browser. This might provide a buffer for new files that are inevitably created during the recovery process and avoid overwriting files to be recovered.

No, wipe free space will not wipe, or overwrite, any live files. XP sys restore makes a backup of what it considers to be vital files and restores these on demand. It does not use deleted files, nor does any XP operation.

What bad files? If you mean the files that CC is configured to delete, then tick the Secure Deletion option in Options/Settings. One overwrite will do. Then run CC as usual.

There is no future in 'They had to be saved to the same drive they were originally contained on.' Go and buy a flash drive, 900 pics at 500 or 600 kb is under 512 mb, so any flash will be OK. Do as absolutely little as you can on the pc. That's booting it up, surfing, emailing and God knows what people get up to. Don't do it (but too late comes to mind). Try running a Recuva deep scan. It will take some time and return a lot of data, but how important are the pics? When you find any pics save them to the flash drive. You're into recovering what you can now. Yes. deleting the pics again (you mean the recovered pics?) is stupid. Leave them where they are, or copy them to the flash drive. You will gain nothing by deleting them. Don't save anything to cd as you will create more temp files that will overwrite deleted data.

How much are you wiping, how long have you been waiting?

I've found that the file status coulmn is not gospel, as we westerners tend to say. Have a look at the file info panel. Has the file been overwritten by another file? If it has then you may be looking at the overwriting file, and recovering that. Secure deleting an overwritten file does not touch the contents of the overwriting file.

Ap, you seem to have missed step 2.5 in your list that says 'Then I clicked on the master check box and selected all entries found, I right clicked the mouse and pressed Secure Delete all checked.' Did you do this?

You're adding files/folders in the Include section? All files within a folder on a non-system drive are deleted. CC does not 'clean' non-system drives in the same way as it does system drives.

Your pc will only be dead if you have some hardware malfunction. Can you boot it up and press F12 or whatever it is to then boot from the Windows installation disk?

Most free applications (and I'm a sucker for free stuff) offer no support at all apart from the forums. At least here we get not only a full version of the software but occasional visits from the developers. In the early days I had a post that had over 1000 views and no responses. Ah well. I find that if you have a problem with a free product you have to search the forums and Google, and if all fails either plug away on your own or, as you say, use another product. Your problem, as far as I can grasp it, does seem a litte esoteric.

Re-install CC and untick the box that says 'Notify new Release'. Then either visit the Announcements forum once in a while, or click on Check for Updates when you feel like it.

This might be difficult to manage, apart from the change in philosophy due to no space being reclaimed (think of all the repetitive posts there would be here!). An average user, if there is one, especially a new user, could well have several thousands of files in several gb's dumped to the recycler. And again when CC is run again. And again.... And the space used grows. And how would that average user know what to restore in the event of some mishap? I guess the deleted files could be saved in a folder with a life of say seven days (cleaned by CC). There would probably be as many problems restoring deleted files on top of live files, especailly a folder full of files if it were done in one splodge, as there would be losing them.

They options are 'greyed out' until you tick the checkboxes, when they become fully displayed. The right-click trick (in this case to run one option only) works whether the option is checked or not. If all your options are greyed out then can you tick the checkbox of a few to see whether they light up?

I guess that's just how it is. Maybe these tweaks will come later.

An application can know (or be told) what's a temp file and what folder it's in on the system drive, as they are known entities. There's no way it can tell what is good and what isn't on other drives.

Wipe free space will not remove any live (undeleted) files on any drive. It overwrites free space. CC file cleanup runs on the system drive only. If you want to remove any specific files or folders on the d drive then you will have to drag them into the Include section of CC/Options, and tick the Custom Files and Folders box on the Cleaner page.

Nobody can tell you that. Even knowing what issues are showing, the configuration of your box, what applications and versions are installed, and what applications do you want to keep, it could take a very knowledgable person several hours to give you an opinion on what to delete. Whilst CC has a reputation for being a fairly safe registry cleaner, I would advise you not to run Fix All Issues, and remove indvidual entries only when you are sure what they are. I doubt if registry cleaning will make a noticable difference in speed or space on a modern box so don't worry too much about a few stray entries. On the other hand, if you're feeling brave...

What do you mean, 'set CC to clean the D disk'?

By the way, Icedrake's link doesn't actually rank Avira and Avast first and second, they just appear that way in the alphabetical table. Avira does get very favourable comments though, but is pipped by AVK in detection rates. It seems that whatever virus s/w you chose it should start with an A.

Avast Web Shield seems to start at under 2 mb, then racks up as you open web pages, but doesn't seem to release the memory significantly even if you close the browser (FF). I've never noticed, or worried, about this before, it's no great problem.