Reliability of 1 Pass 0

Hi Everyone!

I'd just like to say that CCleaner is one of my most favorite utilities!

i do have a specific situation here, maybe advance users could help me out?

I recently sold my netbook which I had freshly formatted and then ran CCleaner

for one pass 0 on EMPTY SPACE. There was a previous Windows 7 installation with

the possibility of holding critical files.

The disk writing completed, but I was wondering how reliable it

is since I had written over ONLY the empty space and not the essential files.

Being that you formatted (I assume you did a full format to NTFS,) that'd overwrite the old files, then, on top of that, you ran an eraser over that, so you should be just fine. :)

Probably have nothing to worry about, although the most reliable way to erase a disk is to connect it externally through usb to a computer, then format it, then wipe the entire disk before setting up Windows.

I would think you should be good, but there may be the possibility that someone with highly technically advanced machines may have a possibility of recovering the data. Most people should not be able to recover this, I would think.

If you are paranoid, just get it back, wipe the entire drive 3 passes to set your mind at ease, then reset Windows & give it back to them.

Thanks guys!

I did do a fully NTFS format, but I understand that people may be able to recover from that.

So I did perform a 1 pass 0 erase for empty space. What I am paranoid about is that the essential Windowsfiles

which overlap the old recoverable files were not overwritten with 1 pass 0. Or am I really just

going into paranoia here :blink: ?

I'm waiting for Alan B to chip in :lol:

(Kidding Alan)

I'm waiting for Alan B to chip in :lol:

(Kidding Alan)

+1

A format will not overwrite old files (apart from the system meta files), it's more like a glorified Chkdsk. Presumably you reinstalled Win7 and then ran CC WFS?

What's an 'essential Windows file'? What are you trying to overwrite?

I'm waiting for Alan B to chip in :lol:

(Kidding Alan)

Happy to join the party and bring a present with me.

Question - What Free Space - Where is it / was it - is that all ?

Within a Partition the may be files and everything else is Free space that may hold deleted and recoverable files.

Outside of the partitions no files can be accessed normally,

but there may be recoverable files still held as a result of previous Partitions that occupied that space.

Under Tools / Drive Wiper there is a Wipe Option that selects either Entire Drive or Free Space.

It is not immediately apparent to me what this Free space is, i.e.

a) Sectors inside a partition that hold either no data or remnants of deleted files; or

B) Sectors outside of all partitions; or

c) both (a) and (B).

I also do not understand what happens if I choose Entire Drive,

i.e. will it erase the Partitions designated by check marks under "Drives",

or will it try to erase the entire Hard Drive ?

It would be far better to NOT refer to Drives if Partitions are the target.

I would be far more comfortable if I knew that only designated partitions were being zapped;

but I would also like to know if confidential files held in deleted partitions could be removed,

or whether I need a Boot and Nuke CD.

I am not desperate to eliminate anything so I have not researched the FAQ's,

but I fear that some CC users will not know of the FAQ's and assume that CC will do what they hope.

I always assume the worst possible outcome - surprising how fears are self full-fulling ! !

Regards

Alan