Hello there, I selected the wipe free space option because I ran into an unrelated disk problem. After selecting that option, it gave me a warning that it would take a long time. I ran the analyser, hit clean, and it cleaned but it only took like 2 seconds... There's no indication anywhere that it actually wiped free space. Did it do it?
Sorry for double post. I just rebooted into safe mode and used command prompt to bring up diskpart utility. Diskpart shows every drive has 0 free space. Even though all drives show free space in windows. Does this mean every drive is corrupted?
Solved:
Somehow this fixed the problem. I'm putting it here in-case it helps someone else.
Also, diskpart showing 0 free space is normal. I'm just dumb lol.
Here's what I did to fix disk full error:
Step 1: Control Panel > System and Security > System > Advanced System Settings > Click 'Settings...' under Performance > Click Advanced tab > Click 'Change...' under Virtual memory > Select 'No paging file' for all drives > click OK
Step 2: Open RegEdit as admin. Go to the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager. Right click > New > D-Word (32-Bit) Value > Call it "ClearPageFileAtShutdown" > Double click it and set the value to 1 > Click OK
Step 3: Right-click problem drive > Properties > Tools > Click "Check Now..." under Error-checking
Restart Computer
Step 4: Undo changes in Step 1.
Restart Computer
And the problem seems to have been fixed.
Solved what problem? That WFS took only two seconds? I can't see the connection.
If you are using WFS from Options/Settings then you must have Wipe Free Space checked in Cleaner/Advanced, otherwise nothing will happen.
How full is the drive?
In other words how much free space was there to be wiped?
The fact that resetting the Pagefile size by turning paging off then on again appears to have solved your "unrelated disk problem", plus the fact that WFS took only seconds, suggests to me that the "unrelated disk problem" you have may stem from the fact that your disc is simply too full.
Windows needs sufficent free space on your C: drive (the OS drive) to work properly.
The general recommendation is 15%-20% free for a HDD, or 10%-15% free for a SSD. If you have less freespace than that then you may start to encounter problems.
If your disc has less than about 15% free space then it's time to move some files off that disc, or swap it out for a bigger capacity disc.
All you have done with your above settings changes is to tell Windows to clear the Pagefile when you Shut Down. (Which will make shutting down take longer).
You had told it not to use a pagefile at all, but then you reversed that.
Did the Error-checking "Check now" find any errors to fix?
'I ran the analyser, hit clean' makes me think that WFS from Options/Settings was used, as Drive Wiper has neither analyse nor clean functions. We need to know if WFS in Cleaner/Advanced was checked.
We haven't asked whether the drive is an SSD. I can't remember (or never knew) if WFS from Options/Settings recognises an SSD and does a RETRIM instead of a zero-fill wipe. If so then asking NTFS to issue the RETRIM command may well only take a few seconds, and NTFS would do the RETRIM.