Recently, I was able to wipe the entire C drive clean before returning the PC to the company. I clicked on "Entire drive (All data will be erased) and Advanced Overwrite (3 passes). The wipe took quite a while; I was pleased to see that when it was competed, the entire drive was clean.
I just tried using Drive Wiper on another computer but when I try to access the above actions, nothing happens, C is not highlighted. Don't understand the concept of "Free Space Only." Don't know what free space is or why I would want to wipe clean space that's empty.
Your help on how to be able to do the total drive wipe, as I did before, will be very much appreciated. ec
you've never been able to completely wipe a live windows system drive.
Think about it logically
Ccleaner is doing the wipe
To run ccleaner on Windows you must be in a Windows session.
How can ccleaner wipe not only its own existence (if it runs from the c drive) and the universe in which it resides (Windows Operating System)
Free space is any space on the drive that is not being used by live (non-deleted) files. So any previously deleted will be overwritten.
This is something you would want to do before "returning the PC to the company"
Here would be the Routine I suggest for return assuming you want no data of yours to be given to them (I'm assuming "the company" is giving the PC to another user after you)
1: Reinstall windows as a clean install wiping out all old data (depending on the Windows version this is called multiple different things on the windows installer).
2: Defragment the Windows (Windows defragmenter will work fine, or Defraggler portable if you prefer)
3: download to a memory stick or external drive ccleaner portable
4: Wipe Free space, one secure overwrite with MFT option enabled should be enough to thoroughly make your computer safe for resale/reassignment