It is my understanding that CCleaner doesn't necessarily delete index.dat files per se, but that it "vacuums" out the contents of the file. Is this correct?
I am viewing my index.dat files using a program called Index.DatSuite. While most of them appear to be newly created, one of them dates back to May 31 which was the day Windows was installed. Also, the size of the file is fairly large (896k), so it appears to have been growing since day one even though it's now "empty" ...strange
My question is what exactly happens to the contents of the index.dat files?
While on the surface it appears that CCleaner deleted the contents of the file, my fear is that the data is still "hidden" within the confines of that 896k file just waiting to be recovered.
Ideally, not only do I want the index.dat contents to be deleted, but also to have them be securely overwritten by using say the 35 pass gutmann method. If CCleaner cannot securely overwrite the index.dat files, are the contents at least thrown into the free space so that I can can overwrite them by using a free space wipe?