MRMS
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Posts posted by MRMS
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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.
CCleaner did not securely delete the files and Recuva shows as "Not Deleted"
in CCleaner Help Requests
Posted
Nukecad,
Thank you for quick response.
1. I am good with ZZZ files as they are now non-readable even when downloaded.
2. As far as "Not Deleted" files are concerned, I had run the CCleaner using "Wipe MFT Free Space" option to securely delete the files. I found that, there is a View option in Windows Explorer (see attached screenshot) that makes you enable to see hidden folders, files, and protected operating system files. This helped me to see the
"$RECYCLE.BIN" folder and subfolders in external hard drive in Windows Explorer where "Not Deleted" files (see Recuva screenshot from my previous posting) were hidden, the same showed up in Recuva earlier. I securely deleted these files from "$RECYCLE.BIN" folder again and I ran Recuva with "Deep Scan" and "scan for non-deleted files" option and they didn't show up. Do you think I should be good now?
Thanks