NewToPiriform

Hi Augeas, I double checked the drive and it is definitely NTFS, I remember formatting it.

Hi Alan XP Home Service Pack 3 The USB drive is an Imation 8GB flash drive ie not an external hard drive. Formatted NTFS. Hi Willy As I had deleted all of the files from the USB and I had the "Wipe MFT Free Space" (WMFS) ticked, CCleaner should have securely overwritten all of the files and the file names from the MFT. Thinking about it, there are probably 2 ways of approaching the overwriting operation: 1. Overwriting all of the areas on the drive not currently being used ie all of the free space, or 2. Delete only the areas on the drive that are marked as having at some point contained a file via the MFT If CCleaner wanted to use approach 1, then it would have to overwrite all the free space on the drive, and then to finish the job it would have to remove any deleted files from the MFT. If CCleaner were to use approach 2, then they would need to use the MFT to examine where on the drive to overwrite, before deleting the files from the MFT. Although I can't be certain, due to the time involved, I think CCleaner overwrites all of the free space, not just the areas on the drive that are marked as having contained data in the MFT. In this case the order shouldn't matter. Option 1 is more secure as the MFT might not be accurate, while option 2 would be faster. It could be that CCleaner overwrites the free space, but forgets to remove any overwritten or deleted files from the MFT.

Hi Willy2 thanks for your fast reply. When I ran CCleaner I had both "Wipe Free Space Drives" (WFSD) and "Wipe MFT Free Space" (WMFS) ticked in the options/settings section and "Wipe Free Space" (WFS) ticked in the cleaner/windows section. Shouldn't this have deleted both the files and the Master File Table, ie why is step 1 necessary?

Hi I tried cleaning the free space on a USB drive with CCleaner, as I was preparing to sell it, by: 1. going to options -> settings -> secure deltion (secure file deletion slower) -> simple overwrite 1 pass, selecting the usb drive, and checking "wipe MFT free space" 2. going to cleaner -> windows -> then checking the "wipe free space option" (the very last option in the list) Then when it had finished I ran recuva to see if the free space had been deleted. When I selected: options -> actions -> deep scan the names of all of the files that were on the USB were listed although they were in "red condition" and I could not recover them. Why are all of my file names and files still on the drive, when these files should have been properly deleted? Is the wipe free space option broken, or being developed further, or do I need to use another product such as kill disk or DBAN in order to wipe the USB properly before selling it?