I know cluster tips (slack space) is not part of free space. Using CCleaner to wipe free space did not decrease cluster tips as detected by Karen's Disk Slack Checker. Karen's Disk Slack Checker is at http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptslack.asp.
I have significant amount of cluster tips in all of my removable media and external hard drives. For example, Karen's Disk Slack Checker detected that my 8 GB Kanguru Flasblu flashdrive has 900.93 MB slack. Slack space is a very large percentage of the 8 GB flashdrive. Screenshot of beginning of Karen's analysis is at http://imgur.com/SDr6oza Screenshot of end of Karen's analysis is at http://imgur.com/tnr8jhs
I will repeat my questions:
(1) Secure File Deletion deletes the file and cluster tip. I don't want to delete my personal files. How to delete cluster tips WITHOUT deleting my personal files on removable media? Ccleaner does not offer an option to do this.
(2) Do I need to move my personal files to another disk, perform a Secure File Deletion of flashdrive, move my personal files back to flashdrive and retest with Karen's Disk Slack Checker?
(3) Several months ago, Windows reformatted the flashdrive. FAT32's default cluster size for a 8 GB drive is 4 KB. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/192322 However, Karen's Disk Slack Checker reported it as 16 KB. However, the minimum size of file on disk of all of my removable media is 32 KB.
If I move my personal file to another disk, perform Secure File Deletion on the flashdrive, reformat the flashdrive and move my files back, new large cluster tips will be recreated because the FAT32 cluster size is always larger than the default cluster size on all of my removable media.
All the Windows XP and Windows 7 computers I have used in the past several years, do not give options of 'Allocation Unit Size.' The drop down box only has 'Default Allocation Size.' Screenshot of a Dell desktop XP #1 is at http://imgur.com/2GAov8Z Screenshot of a different Dell desktop XP #2 is at http://imgur.com/12kKa99
The 'Allocation Unit Size' should have options ranging from "512 bytes to 64K." http://superuser.com/questions/31682/formatting-a-partition-what-should-the-allocation-unit-size-be
Gparted and Disk Utility in linux can format to FAT32 but they do not offer an option of Allocation Unit Size. Gparted GUI formats to default cluster size. http://gparted-forum.surf4.info/viewtopic.php?id=17030
http://askubuntu.com/questions/370660/is-it-possible-to-set-allocation-unit-size-with-gparted-when-formating-an-extern
Using Windows 'Default Allocation Size,' or a linux partitioner that does not offer choice of Allocation Unit Size, all my removable media have size of file on disk larger than FAT32's default cluster size listed at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/192322 This will recreate large cluster tips.