Does wipe free space ONLY wipe free space

[karlsnooks]

If I check Wipe Free Space, is the free space AND ONLY the free space wiped?

 

If I check to wipe the C drive and the C contains the Windows folder, then is C wiped?

 

If I check to wipe the C and C is the drive with the boot files, then is C wiped?

 

The reason for the wording is the Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, has named the drive with the \windows folder the BOOT drive and the drive with the boot files is named the SYSTEM drive. Even Mark Russonovitch finds this amusing, but true.

 

to summarize, is free space wiped without wiping anything else? Is this true regardless of the drive selected?

With Piriform can i destroy myself, that is Can I wipe the C even if the C is the "boot" drive (the one with the windows folder),

With piriform can I make my system unbootable by wiping the "system" drive which is the one with the boot files, the mbr.

[Jamin4u]

Hi karlsnooks, and welcome to the forum.

 

"Wipe Free Space" will leave your normal files intact and only wipe the free space on the drive selected.

 

"Wipe Entire Drive" will erase all of the files on the drive selected. For safety reasons, this feature is disabled for the boot drive.

 

Take a look at this for more info.

[DennisD]

Hi Karlsnooks, and welcome to Piriform.

 

Wipe Free Space only wipes space which has been allocated to be overwritten by Windows. It doesn't touch any of your files/folders at all.

 

Bear in mind that this isn't something to be used on a regular basis. Just occasionally, and usually if someone is intending to sell a computer. And if you use "Secure Delete", I would suggest a single wipe pass is sufficient.

 

More info here ...

 

http://www.piriform.com/docs/ccleaner/using-ccleaner/wiping-free-disk-space

 

 

EDIT: Ninja'd by Jamin.