electrojim Posted April 16, 2009 Share Posted April 16, 2009 CCleaner is up-front, stating that a Wipe Free Space operation might take a while. My problem is that it doesn't seem to happen at all, whether I include Free Space Wash with regular cleaning or simply do it by itself. When only Free Space Wash is selected from the list, the process is over in a second or so with no results shown. I'm running Ver. 2.18.878 on a Dell Vista/64 system. Is there anything else I need to do? Although this is a relatively new machine, there ought to be lots of dumped e-mails (tons re: Viagra!) and other scraps that never end up in the Recycle Bin. Otherwise CCleaner seems to be doing a fine job. My only suggestion would be a mode where CCleaner runs automatically when the computer is shut down, but I know that's a programming hassle, especially with Vista. The shutdown-after option is nearly as good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators DennisD Posted April 16, 2009 Moderators Share Posted April 16, 2009 Hi electrojim, and welcome to Piriform. It's possible you've missed another section in CCleaner that needs to be checked to activate the Wipe Free Space feature. The first checkbox is in CCleaner\Windows\Advanced, and the other check boxes, the drive choices, are in CCleaner\Option\Settings. You may have to drag the bottom edge of the CCleaner window down a touch to display this option clearly. I would suggest checking one drive at a time, and running the Wipe Free Space feature on it's own. Hope that helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
electrojim Posted April 16, 2009 Author Share Posted April 16, 2009 AHA! Missed that and have checked the C:/ box. It's wiping as I write this... and things are still running! Thanks, Jim Hi electrojim, and welcome to Piriform. It's possible you've missed another section in CCleaner that needs to be checked to activate the Wipe Free Space feature. The first checkbox is in CCleaner\Windows\Advanced, and the other check boxes, the drive choices, are in CCleaner\Option\Settings. You may have to drag the bottom edge of the CCleaner window down a touch to display this option clearly. I would suggest checking one drive at a time, and running the Wipe Free Space feature on it's own. Hope that helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
electrojim Posted April 16, 2009 Author Share Posted April 16, 2009 Okay, Dennis, The Wipe Free Space ran, after I checked the C:/ drive, and with this hard drive took close to an hour to do the job. But, when it finished it said 0kB removed. Is this normal? Since Wipe Free Space is indeed a 'special' operation that a user might like to do once a month or so, why not take it off the checklist and make it a separate operation? That way a user could perform that operation by itself without having to uncheck all those other boxes and then remember which ones were checked so they could be restored. I suppose just checking the Wipe Free Space box once a month and let CCleaner do its regular job, plus wiping the free space, is nearly the same thing; the time to do a nomal cleaning is a very small fraction of the total time for normal+free. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robbie Posted April 16, 2009 Share Posted April 16, 2009 Okay, Dennis, The Wipe Free Space ran, after I checked the C:/ drive, and with this hard drive took close to an hour to do the job. But, when it finished it said 0kB removed. Is this normal? Since Wipe Free Space is indeed a 'special' operation that a user might like to do once a month or so, why not take it off the checklist and make it a separate operation? That way a user could perform that operation by itself without having to uncheck all those other boxes and then remember which ones were checked so they could be restored. I suppose just checking the Wipe Free Space box once a month and let CCleaner do its regular job, plus wiping the free space, is nearly the same thing; the time to do a nomal cleaning is a very small fraction of the total time for normal+free. If you have unchecked all the other boxes then it is perfectly normal for CCleaner to report that 0kb have been removed since the removal message refers to the deleting (i.e. removal) operations that are performed when the other boxes are ticked. The Free Space wipe doesn't actually delete anything in the conventional sense - it is essentially just an overwrite operation rather than a delete (removal) operation. The drive doesn't actually gain any additional free space by performing a free space wipe so nothing has been "removed", although of course anything in free space will have been overwritten. I agree that the free space wipe operation should be removed from the checklist and moved to another part of the program so that it can be ran as a separate operation without the need to uncheck / check once again all the other boxes. Perhaps it could be moved to the Options part, or even better as I suggested when the free space wipe feature was introduced, removed from CCleaner altogether and moved to Recuva as it would complement that program. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Augeas Posted April 17, 2009 Moderators Share Posted April 17, 2009 What about right-clicking the Wipe Free Space option in Cleaner/Windows/Advanced and selecting Clean Wipe Free Space? That might run the operation without unticking any boxes. I don't know if it really fits in Revcuva as wipe free space is an anti-recover option. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robbie Posted April 17, 2009 Share Posted April 17, 2009 What about right-clicking the Wipe Free Space option in Cleaner/Windows/Advanced and selecting Clean Wipe Free Space? That might run the operation without unticking any boxes. I don't know if it really fits in Revcuva as wipe free space is an anti-recover option. That does work Augeas - good find! Just right-clicking on the Wipe Free Space option and then choosing "Clean Wipe Free Space" from the context menu runs only the Free Space Wipe operation without the need to untick any boxes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
electrojim Posted April 17, 2009 Author Share Posted April 17, 2009 Excellent solution! Had not idea that right-click option was there; proves the point that one should always right-click everything to discover its darkest secrets. Thanks much! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators DennisD Posted April 17, 2009 Moderators Share Posted April 17, 2009 What about right-clicking the Wipe Free Space option in Cleaner/Windows/Advanced and selecting Clean Wipe Free Space? That might run the operation without unticking any boxes. I don't know if it really fits in Revcuva as wipe free space is an anti-recover option. Augeas, you are definitely the "workaround" champ on here. That's another good one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ident Posted April 18, 2009 Share Posted April 18, 2009 Dont wont to start a new thread as not bothered more curious. why does ccleaner tell me there is no free space to be wiped yet recova finds loads??? surely thats what ccleaner should be cleaning when you run wipe free space? No fate but what we make Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robbie Posted April 18, 2009 Share Posted April 18, 2009 Dont wont to start a new thread as not bothered more curious. why does ccleaner tell me there is no free space to be wiped yet recova finds loads??? surely thats what ccleaner should be cleaning when you run wipe free space? You are confusing what the the two programs actually do and how they run. Recuva will list all files it can find in Free Space and will display the size of each file. The size of all free space is not displayed however. The figure you see at the bottom left of the program (to the right of NTFS) is not the size of the free space but rather of the entire drive or partition. CCleaner will display the size of free space if you run the free space wipe option - the size of free space is displayed along with the % of the operation completed. However if you just run Analyze it will not display the size of free space. If you want to know how much free space you have just look at "My Computer" in Windows XP or before or "Computer" in Vista and the figure is there. The files you find in Recuva are resident in, and a part of, the free space you see there. CCleaner cleans the entirety of this free space. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murf Posted May 2, 2009 Share Posted May 2, 2009 OK, finally, I tried right-clicking on Cleaner->Windows->Advanced-Wipe Free Space, and was able to initiate wiping the free space on my drives.... but.... Why are all the options in Cleaner->Windows greyed out from "Windows Error Reporting" to the bottom, including Advanced, and everything under it? I'm running Vista, and after setting up the Options stuff to do a wipe, it left me quite confused as to how to get a free space wipe underway!!!! It's a major design flaw, in my mind, when I, the average stupid user, have to hit the forums and search for topics relating to free space wiping, just to find out a pretty non-obvious way to initiate that action!!!! murf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Augeas Posted May 2, 2009 Moderators Share Posted May 2, 2009 They options are 'greyed out' until you tick the checkboxes, when they become fully displayed. The right-click trick (in this case to run one option only) works whether the option is checked or not. If all your options are greyed out then can you tick the checkbox of a few to see whether they light up? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now