Alan_B

Thanks for all the replies. I prepared a VHD for testing Eraser Portable v5.8.8.1 I ticked the top option "Unused space on drive" and browse to K-130MB-K (K:) @Augeas Thanks for the warning. I understand that Defraggler etc. does its "magic" by using Microsoft publish API's, so if Microsoft do not publish MFT API's or even information about MFT structure then I share your concern. Regardless of the danger to a zero cost VHD drive K:\ I have decided to honor my promise to test Erase and post back the result. I downloaded and used Eraser Portable 5.8.8.1. I clicked the green RUN Arrow and am told I am about to erase all selected data, AND AM WARNED THAT FILES CANNOT BE RECOVERED AFTER ERASING. That warning proves that Eraser is defective and I cannot trust it. Either it has given me a spurious and irrelevant warning, or it is about to delete more than unused space, AND IT MIGHT ALSO MISUNDERSTAND MY INTENDED TARGET DRIVE. I am happy for Eraser to destroy my test VHD, but decided to spare System C:\ from any possibility of "collateral damage by Friendly Fire". I will therefore give up hoping for an ideal purge of the MFT. Regards Alan

That does NOT make sense. YOU MUST use a non-corrupted Windows Installation. If your System Disk cannot boot then how can you see drive C:\ Give up what you are doing. Disconnect your corrupted Disk from the unbootable computer, and connect it to a FULLY WORKING computer with Recuva installed, and to that attach your destination drive. THEN Windows Explorer and Recuva should fully function, and if not post the requested screen-shot.

What is the Operating Sysstem under which you are running Recuva ? You already know that something is so broken that "clicking Make New Folder did not work" so DO NOT DO THAT AGAIN. Instead use Windows Explorer to create a destination folder on the "external medium". If you do not succeed then Recuva is not implicated - something is wrong with whatever is your active Operating System. I you succeed in creating a destination folder, then use Recuva to find and save the files, and if that does not work please run Windows Disk Management and expand to show all details for all Disks and partitions and supply a screen shot.

@Augeas I do not care about how the MFT is grouped or modified. My concern is that if I lose a file in the 10 GB partition D:\, Recuva will search and find a total of 15803 files, of which only 1280 will be ignored because they have not been deleted. I periodically backup the entire D:\., after which I might create and then delete 140 more files. If a file is lost (or should not have been deleted) then Recuva may find it somewhere in the middle of 14,000 other deleted files. It would be much easier and quicker to find it if there were only 140 other deleted files. By purging the deleted file names from the MFT after creating a backup the 14,000 old deleted files would no longer appear. CCleaner Erase Free Space etc may solve the problem, unless the required file is named "zebedee" in which case it would appear somewhere in the middle of 14,000 anonymized z.zz..z.z @Andavari Thanks, I do prefer Portable where available. Regards Alan

Thanks for the information. I only knew of Eraser as a complete disk eraser and had not realized it could erase free space. I will clone a well used partition onto a VHD and try Eraser on that, and post back. Many thanks Alan

Please don't tease me Thanks - you know exactly what I need to know - now tell me how to do it please. I have just searched for "Compact MFT" and found two topics requesting this without success on the Mydefrag forum, and also found that $49-95 may buy this from Paragon. I am hoping for a free solution. Regards Alan

I am sorry but your topic title is wrong and totally misled me. I thought your complaint was that your free space had been destroyed (deleted) and your screenshot was something you had created for some reason before you ran CCleaner. I did not understand you were considered that free space was a bit smaller than you thought it ought to be.

Wipe Free space is NOT the answer. A Macrium Reflect "Intelligent Copy" partition Image captures for example10,000 files in used space, and exclude empty space which could for example have 100,000 deleted files, BUT it includes the MFT which remembers 10,000 files PLUS 100,000 deleted files. When I restore that image backup to a clean empty partition, then I have 10,000 files, but the MFT has 10,000 file real names and is bloated with another 100,000 "deleted" files which CANNOT be recovered. A file gets lost deleted and I wish to recover so I try Data Recovery tools to search for it ; PROBLEM :- Recuva (or anything else) finds 100,000 "deleted" files in the MFT That is a might big haystack to search for one needle. This is why I would like to purge deleted entries from the MFT before I ever accidentally delete something. The best from CCleaner Wipe is that each deleted MFT entry is changed to a weird zz.zz.z.z..zzz.z sequence, which is hardly helpful if the file I lost should also start "zzz..." Regards Alan

Perhaps in a panic he pulled the plug and caused a disaster. The result is he needs to use something like TreeSize or WizTree to search the largest folders / files to identify what is consuming the space.

Are you sure there are others suffering the exact same problem ? I have not seen any evidence.

Thanks for the extra details which hopefully will enable the developers to replicate the bug.

You have 3 memory slots in use. That suggests you have 2 GB in one slot, and 1 GB in a second slot. Do you have 512 MB in the third slot ? If not then I guess you have 4 GB physically installed and this could be what is shown by intention on the Summary page, whilst the RAM page is more concerned with the amount of RAM that 32 bit windows can handle and put to use. Alternatively if I am guessing wrong then perhaps the developers need to have your particular system to identify why Speccy malfunctions on your specific system. Perhaps you need to specify all details for purchasing your exact same computer and they MAY recognize a feature that is causing Speccy to go wrong.

Thanks for the update.

Perhaps because a browser can benefit from "real-time" protection regardless of which product is your normal protection. and if MBAM is NOT your main "real-time" protector then it is not suitable for supporting "anti-exploit" whilst in that mode.

What happens in the Internet stays on the Internet

I always thought that HTTPS was HTTP with a lisp

If you want direct developer support you need to purchase the PRO version from Piriform. n.b. They have every right to believe that they have fixed the bug with version 1.26 to which you made no reference.

So to maintain ignorance of the >90% you require a one time option click that will prevent them from recognizing the errors of their ways until disaster strikes. You are asking that this disaster be unleashed upon the unwary even though you admit that you yourself choose to refrain from blindly walking the same way. That is against my ethos, and I suspect very much against the philosophy of Piriform.

Not a bug, nor a big mistake Everything on your computer was put there for a purpose by something. If you do not need it then to you it is junk and CCleaner helps you purge it. Most defaults are good for most people. CCleaner provides the Analyze button for special people like myself that like to stay in control by looking at what will be purged before it is purged, and if we want to keep something we cancel the relevant check-box.

You are asking for CCleaner to assume excessive authority. If it conformed to you wishes then Windows would be powerless to prevent CCleaner from destroying the integrity of the Operating System.

Using Windows Explorer, select drive D:\ and right click for the context menu, and select Properties. Does this show the File System as NTFS or as something else Using Windows Disk Management select the top-most volume D:\ which is not NTFS and right click for the context menu, and then select Properties - a screen shot of its properties might be very informative. I am using Windows 7 Ultimate, and see that Windows Disk Management will allow me to select a volume on an external removable Flash Drive and "Add a Mirror" upon any one of my internal HDD's for "Data Redundancy by maintaining multiple copies on different disks". I have never used that and do not know what it would like like with Windows 8 Disk Management, but wonder if Windows was per-installed via an external drive and a mirror was established and now your computer is prepared to mirror if it ever sees that external drive again. This tells you more about making mirrors ( and breaking mirrors - which is alleged to bring you bad luck ) http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc784048%28v=ws.10%29.aspx WARNING - I cannot predict whether your computer would survive the following test, and personally I would only perform if I had full confidence that I could restore with a boot recovery CD from external image backups. I suggest you refrain from this test unless some one with more experience confirms that no harm would occur :- Using Windows Disk Management select the top-most volume D:\ which is not NTFS and right click for the context menu, and then select "Change Drive Letter an Paths" and click "Change" and select an alternative letter. It will be interesting to see if both volumes in Windows Disk Management, and also the Drive shown by Windows Explorer, and change to the same new letter, or whether one or more remain as D:\

Against your two duplicates the status only reads "Healthy(..." For consistency with the others it ought to show "Healthy(O..." They really ought to read "Healthy (OEM Partition)" if they are duplicates of what is shown on the Disk 0 as following Windows (C:) Please try again and expand the Status column to display COMPLETE information, and send a new screenshot. They may both have the status "Healthy (OEM Partition)", but the one that is not NTFS might show something different to give a clue on what is happening.

I am reasonably confident that the hash checksums of the original and recovered files would have been different. I am certain that what you recovered had the exactly correct size and name and time stamps. Is that what you mean by "Pristine condition". That would happen because the first instance was using "Obsolete MFT Data" to determine how many bytes to copy and what name and time stamps to apply. I have restored a Macrium Reflect "Intelligent" 10 GB Partition Image Backup of an HDD to both a 2 GB VHD and a 10 GB VHD. Windows Explorer could see the exact same amount of files ( about 1 GB ) in the original HDD partition and both the VHD. Recuva ( and other data recovery tools ) could see exactly the same amount of deleted files ( about 8 GB ) in the original HDD partition and both the VHD. Because I used "Intelligent" backups the free space was NOT backed up, but the live MFT was backed up and when restored to the VHD's it told them the original L.B.N.'s of files that were not available for restoration. Recuva would have happily recovered 8 GB of empty sectors from the 10 GB VHD and then told me the original names and time stamps even though there was nothing there. Recuva did recognize that most of the deleted files were outside the boundaries of the 2 GB VHD.

Thats not just clean, Its squeaky clean

Define PAUSE and why you want it. Recuva should automatically resume after putting the PC into SLEEP mode and maybe HIBERNATE.