Wipe free space

[simon1]

I have not used this function for the last few years and recently decided to run it to gain more space. I have two partitions on my drive and after it runs for about half an hour I see that it can gain about 54 gb, and that was the same size that could be free for both partitions even though their sizes are different. 

However I could see that I gained about 29 gb on one partition and almost none on the other (checked the size from Windows explorer before and after the operation). I sat the program to use Simple overwrite 1 pass.

 

Is it possible that it can't wipe correctly on both partitions or what?

How are the other options, if I choose advance or complex? (I presume it will take longer to wipe free space)

[Nergal]

Wipe free space gives no extra space.

It fills the space that not occupied by live files with junk files then deletes those junk files.

A disc drive can only take so many writes and reads (HDD) or Writes (SDD exponentially less than HDD), so it is not advised to use this feature unless you plan to sell the drive. As for number of passes, for the reasons given above and because of better drive block-reusing technologies, anything more than the one secure pass that you currently use is also inadvisable, and provides little to no extra protection.

 

As far as your question, I'm not understanding what you mean. A partion is (in windows terms) a drive (I.e. given a letter). as far as I know ccleaner acts upon this definition of drive (a partition) when using WFS (or Wipe Full Drive) and not a kernal level Hardware definition.

 

 

Edited numerous times to clarify and aid information.

[simon1]

Thanks for the reply.

By partitions I mean to separate space C and M drive, where I have windows installed on C drive, and use M drive for backup my files.

I ran wipe clean in two different time once for C and then for M drive.

So you mean the info that is gviing during the process that x amount can be free is incorrect?

[Nergal]

I know what you mean by partitions. And I don't think anything is giving incorrect. Please provide a screenshot of what you mean. WFS does exactly what I said above, you should, per drive (partition), have the same amount of freespace you had before running the tool.

 

Sometimes people have less space due to ccleaner being stopped before finishing the job, but in no way should you have more space after running the WFS tool (in the tools section of ccleaner).

[simon1]

I actually gained 29 gb from wiping drive C, and nothing from drive M according to Windows explorer.

Unfortunately I haven't taken any screen shots.

[Andavari]

You gained space on drive C (Windows drive) because of the cleaning portion of CCleaner that removes unwanted files such as browser cache/temporary internet files, logs, Recycle Bin, temp, etc.

 

Drive M which I assume is a data drive would only gain space if you had something in the Recycle Bin which CCleaner would empty.

[simon1]

Andavari,

I cleaned for junk files before I started wiping the drive, and it only cleaned for about 350 mb.

I read somewhere that after we delete a file or uninstall programs there are still traces of them on the drive that can only be removed by wiping the drive. Maybe this is the reason I gained 29 gb on C drive.

[Augeas]

Or more likely you lost your system restore points in the wiping process. As Andav says, wiping does not remove any live files so no free space can be gained.

[simon1]

 

When you delete a file, Windows removes the reference to that file, but doesn't delete the actual data that made up the file on your hard drive. Over time, this data will be overwritten as Windows writes new files to that area of the drive.

This means that, given the right software, someone could reconstruct all, or parts of files that you've deleted. For privacy and security reasons, you can set CCleaner to wipe the free areas of your hard disk so that deleted files can never be recovered.

 

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

[Augeas]

If you're saying that this is where the extra free space has been claimed, then deleted files are not counted towards the space used total, and wiping them makes no difference to the total space used/free figures.

[Nergal]

Or more likely you lost your system restore points in the wiping process. As Andav says, wiping does not remove any live files so no free space can be gained.

Doh! You're right, that's where the space came from (drive fills, windows says "i need to make room" and purges restore points. Only c drive is restore point and therefore it "gains" space.