I've just posted a similar question on the RECUVA forum...
Will CCleaner -- when the overwrite option is enabled -- affect the FILE NAME in the MFT?
IF so, will that mean that RECUVA's secure file deletion NOT continue to show the deleted file's actual name?
This is important to those of us who would like to delete FILES and the file NAME -- including the residual name stored in the MFT.
Comments?
Thanks,
Louis
If you have some reaaaaaaaaaaaaaally important files that you need to delete, you can select them all (Ctrl + Click on each file), and right click >> Rename.. and enter some stupid name like 0. Then all the files will have this name, plus a number. And you can delete them.
But MrRon said that CCleaner already do this.
Louis, you could always try it, as we have done. And as you have already quoted this "Note: When CCleaner securely deletes files, it renames them with all Zs in the file name (for example, ZZZZZZZZ.ZZZ) for increased security." why do you doubt that CC will perform as intended?
In my experience CC, when set to secure deletion, will overwrite filenames in the MFT to some variant of ZZZZ.ZZ. It doesn't delete them.
Louis, you could always try it, as we have done. And as you have already quoted this "Note: When CCleaner securely deletes files, it renames them with all Zs in the file name (for example, ZZZZZZZZ.ZZZ) for increased security." why do you doubt that CC will perform as intended?
In my experience CC, when set to secure deletion, will overwrite filenames in the MFT to some variant of ZZZZ.ZZ. It doesn't delete them.
OK. If I understand you correctly, when a downloaded file is deleted by CC using the "secure deletion" feature, the ORIGINAL MFT file name is also changed. Correct?
THAT is EXACTLY what I was hoping to hear.
The security hole that remains is those file names stored in the MFT that were NOT deleted by CC while using the secure file deletion -- whey were simply deleted. It is those file names that I would also like to change or remove. Changing things in the MFT appears difficult -- to say the least.
Thanks,
Louis
...Changing those names would mean creating [the number of "empty" MFT entries] 1 Kb files, with a stupid name, and then delete them.
OK. If I understand you correctly, when a downloaded file is deleted by CC using the "secure deletion" feature, the ORIGINAL MFT file name is also changed. Correct?
As far as I know there is a one to one correspondence between live files and entries in the MFT. The MFT entry holds the filename and other file info, size, location, dates etc. When a live file is deleted by CC using secure deletion the filename in the MFT is overwritten by ZZZ's.
The security hole that remains is those file names stored in the MFT that were NOT deleted by CC while using the secure file deletion -- whey were simply deleted. It is those file names that I would also like to change or remove.
I have not known CC to leave any unaltered filenames in the MFT when secure deletion is used. It might be possible, I dunno. Of course there are many deleted file entries in the MFT that were not deleted using CC's secure deletion, so these file names can be seen. CC only renames file that it is specifically deleting.