[Rebooting after Wiping Entire Drive w/ CCleaner]

What I am trying to do is wipe the entire drive.

I am selling the computer and I want to delete all my private info.

Can I not wipe the entire C drive safely with CCleaner?

 

And btw, loveranger, please don't suggest Eraser again. I tried it. It stinks.

If you think Eraser stinks, then you shouldn't even try CCleaner. I'm sure you never used it correctly.

1-pass (Pse), cluster tips enabled, run as administrator - it should do the job. It will take awhile though.

[Rebooting after Wiping Entire Drive w/ CCleaner]

OK for anyone who cares, I just ran Eraser with 1-pass, and used Recuva, and it did much much better job. I wasn't able to recover any files.

[Why isn't Thumbnails.db being deleted?]

I have the Thumbnail cache checked on CCleaner but it isn't being deleted off my PC? I search for thumbnails.db and I can still see them hidden on nearly all desktop/document folders.

[Rebooting after Wiping Entire Drive w/ CCleaner]

People need to realize the free wipe offered by CCleaner is weak and doesn't entirely wipe the drive clean. I've used CCleaner to wipe my hard drive and then used Recuva to recover files, and there was enormous amount of files that were still recoverable. And yes, I ran the program using administrator priviledge.

 

I'm going to use Eraser and see the difference with Recuva.

[What is the best file recovering software to test Eraser?]

What is the best file recovering software... ? The ones used for computer forensics, top-notch state of the art software? Currently I'm using Recuva but I would like to know if there are better alternatives.

[Why does CCleaner only take 1hr to free wipe ~400GB?]

I used both Eraser and CCleaner to wipe my laptop hard drive with the same file erasure method. How come CCleaner takes only an hour, whereas Eraser takes upto 5-9 hrs using the same 1-pass (pseudorandrom) method with cluster tips enabled? What is Eraser doing that CCleaner isn't doing?

["Normal" vs. "Secure" file deletion?]

Good idea. Don't do the crime, save yourself the time. A little rhyme. MMUUaaahaaahaaa.

Or do the crime and save yourself A LOT of time by encrypting. LOL.

["Normal" vs. "Secure" file deletion?]

Or they could simply encrypt their whole hard drive with Truecrypt before doing anything illegal. Hidden or not.

[Option to delete system files securely (1-pass)]

Can't you already do this already? CCleaner>Options>Settings>Secure Deletion>Enable "Secure file deletion". Or did I misconstrue your post?

I assumed this setting only applied to "Wipe Free Space" option.... or does it also apply to all of the options above it?

["Normal" vs. "Secure" file deletion?]

Normal file deletion is just the same as a shift/del. No data is changed or overwritten and the file name remains untouched. Secure deletion renames the file and overwrites it with whatever option is chosen. One pass is all you need. Why offer more passes? Public demand I guess, and there's no accounting for that.

Well if your doing some serious illegal {THINGS}, then it's just a peace of mind to use more than 1-pass.

[Option to delete system files securely (1-pass)]

I don't want CCleaner to just delete system files but delete them for good, being unable to recover it. There should be an option for this. Temporary files, memory dumps... all these could contain sensitive informations.

[Does free space wipe make the hard drive slower?]

loveranger you have had an answer to the question you posted.

 

Please don't try to further the point or I will close this thread..

 

Members have tried to be helpful here

I just wanted to be clear on what he posted earlier. Is it based on assumption or facts? Please don't mislead others with false information based on what you "believe".

[Does free space wipe make the hard drive slower?]

True but you argued that "with enough computing power & time investment a good data recovery expert can recover most anything."

 

How did you come to this conclusion? Did you just make that up or do you have facts to prove your statement? The website from my previous post argues otherwise.

[Does free space wipe make the hard drive slower?]

http://whereismydata.wordpress.com/2009/05/24/forensics-can-data-forensic-companies-retrieve-overwritten-data/

[Does free space wipe make the hard drive slower?]

Could data forensics recover files that are shredded using one pass?

[Does free space wipe make the hard drive slower?]

Peter Guttman stated, according to Wikipedia

Peter Gutmann investigated data recovery from nominally overwritten media in the mid-1990s. He suggested magnetic force microscopy may be able to recover such data, and developed specific patterns, for specific drive technologies, designed to counter such.^[2] These patterns have come to be known as the Gutmann method.

[Does free space wipe make the hard drive slower?]

Oh, I never knew that. Would Eraser (program) doing a DOD on full disk free space affect system performance?

[Does free space wipe make the hard drive slower?]

Free space wipe does only one pass and no, it won't impact overall performance.

In settings you can change from 1 pass to 3,7 or 35 passes.

[Does free space wipe make the hard drive slower?]

If I did wipe free space on my C drive using DOD or greater settings, would it make my hard drive slower? For example, the transfer speeds between USB to my C drive? Overall speed and performance for the hard drive, would it be affected?