Hello,
I wanted to permanently securely delete some files in hard drive, so I ran "Drive Wiper" in CCleaner with settings "Free Space Only", "Complex Overwrite (7 passes)", "Wipe MFT Free Space" with "Wipe Alternate Data Streams" and "Wipe Cluster Tips" check-boxes selected. It ran over night and successfully completed, when I ran Recuva with "Show Securely Overwritten files" and "Scan non-deleted files" options, it brought up files with ZZZ files (with status: Excellent and comment: No overwritten clusters detected.) and a bunch of non-deleted files (with status: Non-deleted with comment: No overwritten clusters detected.). I have two questions.
1. Are ZZZ files securely deleted and unrecoverable? Why status is showing "Excellent" in Recuva? When I downloaded them, they are 1 kb files and doesn't show any contents.
2. Why files are still showing as "Not Deleted" in Recuva, when right-clicked the "Secure Overwrite" option is grayed out, when I downloaded them, they successfully downloaded and I could open the files and see the contents. I would want to delete these files, please help me how could I securely delete these non-deleted files?
I have a few screenshots attached here for the CCleaner settings and Recuva results showing ZZZ and Non-deleted files. Your quick response would be appreciated.
Thanks.