rjo98

Thanks Augeas. So in what circumstances would someone actually want to see these files though since nothing can be done to them? Just trying to understand here.

Hi guys. I'm trying to understand whether I would want to use the "Show zero-byte files" option in Recuva or not. If the files have no data in them since they are zero bytes in size, what is the purpose behind erasing them? the file names may contain sensitive info? but does Recuva really mask the file names then if you securely erase with it?

User Assist History did it, thanks!

Thanks

For instance, I know some options when you click them, it gives you a warning of what it's about to do, but some I run and can't tell what exactly it did, for instance, Start Menu. Is there a webpage somewhere that lists in detail (plain english detail rather than tech detail) what each setting does. Like it would say "Internet Explorer, History: Clears your IE's history" even though that one is obvious haha

I must be missing which option it is, but which one clears the frequently used programs area in the Windows 7 start menu, between All Programs and the Pinned Programs area. Or is there not a setting to reset that in ccleaner?

I know Recuva just looks in the MFT to see where a file used to be then overwrites that space, or something along those lines, but have a question. I just had ccleaner do a wipe free space with a single overwrite pass. I then go into recuva and have it scan, and it says there's a few thousand files that it can overwrite. I have the show securely overwritten files option turned off in recuva. Shouldn't it show me very few files to actually overwrite since ccleaner supposedly just securely wiped all my free space, which is where most these files would exist? Although I haven't done testing to get real hard data/numbers behind it, it also seems that if I run recuva, have it overwrite all the files it finds, then run it again, it tries to overwrite almost the same number of files again. I realize some have other files in place so they can't be overwritten, but just wondering if anyone else has experienced that too?

Ah ok, that makes sense. I just assumed that after Recuva overwrote the file data, it also overwrote the file name in the MFT somehow as well, so all traces of the file were gone. So how does ccleaner do a "wipe mft free space" then, if there's no command to overwrite things in the MFT?

Yeah, that would accomplish the same thing, but I didnt see a command line way to do that either.

Yeah, that'd be another great use for it too! Guessing it's very low on their list, or not even on their list though. Maybe someone from Piriform will chime in and let us know.

Maybe i'm not understanding how it's supposed to work. I have Recuva set to securely delete the files, and dont have the option enabled to show securely deleted files. So I run a Recuva scan, have it securely delete whatever it finds, then when i run recuva again, it finds the same files again and overwrites them again. Shouldn't it have already overwritten the files from the first time I ran it, so they shouldn't show up as needing to be overwritten again?

Is there a switch/option to use with recuva from a command line that will just have it do a scan for files then securely delete whatever ones it finds? or even if it just caused the program to run and delete all files it finds according to whatever the settings are set to in the program already, that would work too.

I know defraggler has the move large files to end of drive type thing, but sometimes you have folders of files that you'd want to move to the end of disk for the same reason as you would large files. I don't know of a way to do that with the current software. Does anyone know if a way exists?

I use the option of moving large files to end of disk to move ISO's and other stuff I rarely use, but any thought to adding an option where you can select a directory to move everything inside of it to the end of disk as well? Would be a nice option for if you have backups you keep, tons of old photos, etc that you rarely access. Or another instance might be if you've digitize your entire CD collection into MP3s. I suppose you could trick the move large files thing to also move .mp3 and set the size requirement to something real low like 5MB, but that seems kinda silly and defeats the purpose of a "large files" feature, but i guess it would do the trick. What do you guys think?

Right now if i want to securely erase a file, i put it in my recycle bin then switch ccleaner to securely overwrite and enable the recycle bin option. I know what i'm asking for is more like an erasing program function, but is there a sick way i'm unaware of to more easily erase files using ccleaners built in erasing capability?

I use the option of moving large files to end of disk to move ISO's and other stuff I rarely use, but any thought to adding an option where you can select a directory to move to end of disk as well? Would be a nice option for if you have backups, tons of old photos, etc that you rarely access.

Has anyone else noticed that the "shutdown after clean" option doesn't always work if the laptop stays inactive for a while and the screen locks waiting for you to enter your password to unlock it. I'm not sure if this is by design, or maybe just a flukey thing, as ccleaner usually doesnt run that long on my PC to where the screen locks. Just wonder if anyone else has noticed that or anything.

I have a massive collection of MP3s on my computer, all stored in my My Music folder. I like how defraggler can move large files to the end of the disk, is there a way I can use that to move my music collection to the end of the drive as well. The files never change, and having them at the end of the drive isn't going to affect performance. more like permanent storage at the end.

Actually, upon further investigation, it looks like the Defraggler right click submenu options are getting inserted for whatever is the first option in the right click menu, rather than under the actual Defraggler heading in the right click menu.

I just installed the latest version of Defraggler and asked it to install the right click options so i could try them out. When I right click a folder there is now a Defraggler option, but no suboptions and if i just click Defraggler in the right click menu, nothing happens. If I do a search, then right click one of the files in the search results, Defraggler is there with no options, but now my Open Containing Folder has suboptions of "Check Fragmentation" and "Defragment" and now i can't do an Open Containing Folder on any of the files. I'm running XP SP3, and Defraggler tells me my Defraggler is up to date when I do a check.

Is there a way to have defraggler just do the move large files of a certain file type to the end of the disk, without it defragging all the other stuff? I know that's not the greatest of ideas, but it might be beneficial if you only have a little amount of time and want to get a head start on a large disk defrag, where you can start to just move the files to the end of the disk and defragment them.

Thanks for explaining. I still dont understand why if the file is deleted, it would stay in the MFT though. Shouldn't a normal delete remove it from there as well, or mark it for deletion upon some process or something happening?

I tried to do a secure erase on all the files recuva found, just to try it out, and a lot of files errored out because the file is resident in the mft. Could someone explain this to me, and tell me how a file gets out of the mft, whether automatically or forced out? I thought the MFT only contained info regarding each file, it didn't actually have any files in it, so I'm confused by this.

they do pay $20 for a hammer LOL So why do all theirs do at least 3 passes though?

So not to beat a dead horse, but this topic is interesting to me. I know I'm getting slightly off topic, but since you guys seem to know a lot about this, do you know of a good article to read that explains why there are so many secure erasing methods. Like I notice there are two different Department of Defense ones, then there's one from the Army and Navy. You'd think the government would agree on one that works. Although looking at those I'm guessing three passes might be the magic number, as one of the DoD's, Army, and Navy are three passes, with the other DoD is 7.