LesN Posted July 13, 2020 Share Posted July 13, 2020 (edited) I am questioning whether CCleaner's Drive Wiper does anything. I have an external hard drive which I just deleted two folders with over 131,000 files. I wanted to wipe the free space and have always used CCleaner for other things, so thought I'd give it a try. Two versions were used on two systems. V5.46.6652 and V5.68.7820. I tried 3 passes and 7 passes. Ran for a long time of course the 7 passes took a lot longer than the 3 passes. Drive access light was flashing the whole time. When each finished I ran Recuva, and was able to recover all 131,000+ files. To make sure it they were recoverable I recovered a couple of Word documents and MP4 videos and all were in tact. So what's going on? I am using another program now to wipe, but definitely will be warning people that CCleaner's Drive Wiper does not work. Several others have posted similar issues and people were concerned it wasn't working because it was the System drive, which in this case it wasn't. It is an NTFS drive, although that shouldn't matter. Any ideas? Maybe it is the item above that Secure File delete should be selected. I'll try that on my next attempt. It is really confusing though. When it says "Wipe Free Space Only" and Complex 7 passes, I would assume it is overwriting the free space. Edited July 13, 2020 by LesN Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LesN Posted July 14, 2020 Author Share Posted July 14, 2020 No, the deleted files are not overwritten. I am using CCleaner Drive Wiper, selecting the drive and wipe free space. It is taking about 5-6 hours to wipe the free space. When it is finished I run Recuva, deep scan, and all files are found. If it were over writing the files then I would not be able to recover them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LesN Posted July 14, 2020 Author Share Posted July 14, 2020 Another test just finished. I made the changes to the Settings (see attachment) and it appears to have wiped the free space this time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LesN Posted July 14, 2020 Author Share Posted July 14, 2020 Actually, I have several tests running. The program that was successful was Cipher. The CCleaner drive wiper running with the above changes is going to be another 2-3 hours to complete the wipe. I'll post results tomorrow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Andavari Posted July 14, 2020 Moderators Share Posted July 14, 2020 I wonder if all that testing and re-testing is just going to put excessive wear onto your hard drive- just to prove the point! It isn't like Drive Wiper/Wipe Free Space (and whatever else it's called in other programs) is something that should be ran too frequently. Like I stated at the very end of my post here, some people in the past have reported it doesn't work, however the results I suppose will vary system by system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Augeas Posted July 14, 2020 Moderators Share Posted July 14, 2020 Jeez, this is confusing. Are you using Drive Wiper from the Tools menu, or Wipe Freee Space from Options/Settings? The settings in your screenshot apply to Secure File Deletion and have nothing to do with wiping free space. It's difficult to grasp CC running for a long time and nothing is being done. Are you sure you're not looking at undeleted files? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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