By using Recuva, I am able recover files intact even though they were supposedly securely deleted by ccleaner with the very complex overwrite (35 passes) option enabled
You need to give more info when you post on forums
What is your operating system?
What versions of Recuva and Ccleaner are you using?
What type of files were they and did you actually open them afterwards?
OS: XP pro Sp3
Ccleaner version: 3.19.1721
Recuva version: 1:42:544
Word documents and JPEG images.
I can open some of them afterwards
Word automatically makes backup copies during operation, and they become NON-securely deleted when Word is closed.
Can you be sure that the Recuva successes were not these copies ?
What Files system were these files in, NTFS or FAT32 ?
What Drive were these files on?
Was it Internal or External ?
Did you run a normal scan or deep scan? Did the files have their proper names or some other variant?
I can't be sure that the Recuva successes were not Word copies, although I have used a freeware alternative to Word called Office Suite X and these were also recoverable.
The files were in NTFS
The files were on an internal drive
I ran a deep scan
The files sometimes had their proper name, sometimes they had a slight variation.
It's common to see edit/defrag or other copies when running a deep scan. Secure file deletion only deletes the current version of the file, so these copies can be found and recovered. You can overwrite them by using Wipe Free Space.
I have tried wiping free space; but found some files were still recoverable
This topic, at it's core, is terribly simple...(and really, the need for you to answer questions regarding your operating system etc etc etc are a JOKE)...
The fact is : When users run CCleaner using "secure delete" , they expect files to be "securely deleted"...They are not. You must use the "Wipe Free Space" option, which is understandable because you are then overwriting the "deleted" file from your hard drive..CCleaner is basically a space optimizer that will "delete" files but not beyond recovery unless you overwrite the free space to which it has been sent...
I have also noticed that, using Recuva, files which have been "deleted" will reappear..However, I have not found this to be the case after using the "Wipe Free Space" option...what concerns me more is that when Recuva shows thumbnails of "unretrievable" files???....simply enlarging the thumbnail, by definition, makes it very recoverable...In my opinion, both these programs rate 8.5/10 for performance but there are some very illogical paradoxes between the two...