Hello, I am trying to erase only the free space on a drive. I go Tools > Drive wiper, select Free Space Only. When selecting the number of passes, if I select "1" then both hard drives are selectable, but the option "Wipe" to actually proceed is not selectable with either drive selected. If I instead select more than 1 pass, the drive I'm trying to erase free space on gets greyed out, and "Wipe" is still not selectable.
Firstly- Your chosen username is in contravention of the forum rules/guidelines.
Please read the guidelines, particularly Number 3, and re-register with a different username if you wish to continue posting here, thanks for understanding.
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To answer your question:
What you are seeing is because your C: drive is an SSD.
Wiping free space on a SSD is not required nor recommended. (Unless perhaps if it's an external drive connected via USB).
The internal TRIM and Garbage-Collection process that are standard with SSDs effectively wipes them anyway.
CCleaner will let you Wipe the free space on a SSD if you realy want to, but it will restrict that to a one pass wipe to avoid using up the SSDs write cycles unecessarily.
Being honest one pass is all that you need on any drive nowadays, and the multi-pass wipes are a 'left over' from years ago when some older types of drive may have benefited from them. (Some specialist drives may still benefit, but not ones that you are likely to have at home).
Doing more than one pass is just wasting your time, and slightly shortening your drive life, that's not a great concern though unless you are wiping frequently.
On 10/05/2024 at 03:01, nukecad said:<div class="ipsQuote_contents"> <p> What you are seeing is because your C: drive is an SSD. </p> <p> Wiping free space on a SSD is not required nor recommended. (Unless perhaps if it's an external drive connected via USB). The internal TRIM and Garbage-Collection process that are standard with SSDs effectively wipes them anyway. </p> <p> CCleaner will let you Wipe the free space on a SSD if you realy want to, but it will restrict that to a one pass wipe to avoid using up the SSDs write cycles unecessarily. </p> <p> Being honest one pass is all that you need on any drive nowadays, and the multi-pass wipes are a 'left over' from years ago when some older types of drive may have benefited from them. (Some specialist drives may still benefit, but not ones that you are likely to have at home). Doing more than one pass is just wasting your time, and slightly shortening your drive life, that's not a great concern though unless you are wiping frequently. </p> </div>
Hi, I created a new account since I unintentionally contradicted the rules with my username, I will just continue using this thread if possible.
The issue that remains with that is, it doesn't even let me do one pass. It's still greyed out.
Thanks for changing the username,
Are you doing a free space wipe or trying to do an Entire Drive wipe?
It should let you wipe the Free Space on C: with 1-pass, but will grey it out if you try to do an entire drive wipe.
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An entire wipe of your system drive (usually C:) would wipe Windows and of course CCleaner itself.
So even if it did let you start one it could never finish.
If you do select a Free Space wipe for a SSD you are shown this warning:
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EDIT- If it still won't let you do a Free Space wipe the is there anything unusual about your C; Drive?
Maybe it's one of those 'school' laptops that has a 32GB C: drive on a chip? (Is that why you are trying to wipe it?).