Wiping Free Space on Several drives

[Microbell]

Greetings All,

 

I've used CCleaner for several years now but never used the "wipe free space" function. I have 4 internal HD's that I have been moving, deleting, copying files from and I'm about to use this function to clean up the drives. I have a few concerns which I hope someone can address.

 

1. Any clue for time factor? Each drives free space is 119GB, 23GB, 29GB, 58GB 217GB, 73GB. *Note* Main drive has 3 partitions. I plan to start with the smaller drive but thought there might be a calculation for how much can be cleaned for each GB. (Exp. 1GB is roughly 20min, 2GB is 40min ect.)

 

2. I've burnt several files to DVD's using the same folder over and over (Was my Temp Encryption location until burnt to dvd). After reading though Ccleaners limits it seams as if this location was used after deleting a file and replacing it with another file and deleting it that the wipe function will not clean that sectors clusters. Is that correct?

 

From the rules section

 

"Wipe Free Disk Space limitations

CCleaner can't wipe every deleted file from your free disk space. There are some limitations, because of the way Windows stores some files.  Here are some examples:

• The file has been overwritten by another file (so no need to overwrite this again)
• The file had been overwritten by another file before you ran CCleaner, but the second file has now been deleted as well.
• The file was created almost exactly when you ran CCleaner."

If true and the wipe function won't clean that directory how do I remove the data so it's unrecoverable?. (Company stuff that's already back up on DVD but needs removed from Hard Drive. The directory will be empty when complete and can be deleted.

 

3. My Encryption container file is located and hidden on the drive. This way windows see's no container files on the drive. Will the "wipe" function see this space and leave the encrypted container intact (not wipe it)?

 

 

Thanks for any input gents!

 

OS Windows 7 SP1

Drivecrypt 5.6.3

Ccleaner 5.17

NTFS file system

 

I'll be using Recuva to see what was missed.

[Augeas]

1) Use one pass overwrite and it should be fairly fast (far faster than 20 mins per gb).

 

2) That's Piriform making things more complicated than they actually are. I think it means that if the clusters allocated to a deleted file have been overwritten by a live file, then the wfs will not wipe these clusters as they contain live data. Later, if that live file is deleted, the clusters will remain unwiped. Of course nothing remains of the original data as it has already been overwritten by the live file.

 

In your case, your heavily reused clusters will be wiped just like any other deleted clusters.

 

I would use Drive Wiper as it's more controllable in use and it runs a wipe MFT first, so your directories will go as well as the data.

[Microbell]

 

 

I would use Drive Wiper as it's more controllable in use and it runs a wipe MFT first, so your directories will go as well as the data.

 

So you would recommend CCleaners Drive Wiper with MFT option checked to wipe the free space as a better option?

 

My concern is making sure that the folder I used to move the files to the DVD's gets wiped along with the recycle bin as I don't want the last set of files in the folder (right now it's empty) to be recoverable and that it DOES NOT wipe the hidden encrypted container file. I know writing and rewriting to that section wiped out the previous files but I need to make sure the last set is gone. Thanks for your input!

[Augeas]

There's no option to check for wiping the MFT in Drive Wiper as you get one 'free'. I recommend Drive Wiper just because it's easier to use than the WFS in Options/Settings, I'm sure they both do the same thing.

 

WFS will overwrite all unallocated space, that includes all deleted files. An encrypted container is just another file so if it's been deleted then it will be wiped.

[Microbell]

Thanks Augeas.

 

What I meant by that "encrypted container" is that it has not been deleted and contains files but it's hidden within a WAV file so anyone looking at the file structure in Windows will not see it. It's not listed as a file or directory and will not show on the hard drive and can only be found and accessed through the encryption software. My concern was that Drive Wiper would clean this area as it may display as "unallocated space" for the Drive Wiper utility but actually contains files that I have to save.

 

My opinion is that Drive Wiper would leave it alone as it's contained within that WAV file but that's just a guess. )

[Augeas]

If the wav file hasn't been deleted then WFS will not touch it. The wav file, in that case, can be seen as a file in a directory. WFS does not look at live files, so they can be called, and can contain, anything you want.