Ccleaner///eraser

[josewails]

Hello everyone

Since there is no BB code that will break the text up, I'm going to use what there is - lines.

I've searched the forum for secure file deleting software, best file eraser and or shredder and it seems I may be stirring up a hornets nest.

I have heard that there is available to those who know about it, software that can undelete files from damaged hard drives or even erased.

So I put Eraser and CCleaner to the test. Both of them claim to erase free space on a hard drive and the limited information that I have - not being a techie - is that once a file is deleted (Windows) it remains intact but has been flagged or unflagged so that the address can be overwritten with new data.

I downloaded a duplicate file finder and went through all of my family photos and deleted about 1,000 photos. I then downloaded Recuva. I set Eraser to erase free space the on the hard drive at 7. I'm not sure what that means but I believe it to be 7 cycles of random data printed (imprinted?) at each address.

I did the same with CCleaner. I ran both programs once then defragged the hard drive with MyDefrag and then run both programs again. The results were scary. Less than 1 in 100 photos were destroyed and not completely at that. I deleted about 1,000 photos and 10 were completely destroyed as far as I could tell there were lots of other stuff mixed in from as far back as 2 years from what I can remember visiting websites and the really scary thing is that there was stuff that I cannot remember ever looking at or clicking on that was on the hard drive. It makes me wonder if there is not a way to actually inject files and photos that were not front and center but hiding just behind a click. I don't know if there is a question here and I'm not absolutely sure that I didn't bark the whole process; hopefully someone here with experience in this matter might throw some light.

edit: I am at this moment using a program called BC Wipe - the free version, I think I have 21 days to try it out. If anyone is interested, I'll come back with the results.

edit: Just for the record, I am not a nefarious person and I do not believe that I have to answer questions like:

What are you doing that you are so worried about what is on your hard drive?

But even more than this it's just good house keeping. You shred paper documents don't you?

 

[Cookiegal]

I've edited your post for excessive formatting. It's not necessary to insert lines between every sentence. If you want to separate text into paragraphs then all you need to do is use the Enter (return) key on the keyboard. Thanks for understanding.

 

[TOGG]

There is a thread, or series of threads, at Wilders Security Forums dealing with privacy and one particular program that was mentioned there was Privazer; http://privazer.com

I did try it a couple of times and didn't have any problems though, unlike you, I didn't make any attempt to check its effectiveness. If you are looking for more candidates to test, Privazer could be of interest (at your own risk of course). Privazer does check and remove some Registry entries during a general scan, contrary to the general advice here about messing with the Registry There is the option to skip the Registry scan and create a restore point before any cleaning is carried out.

At the time I tried this program I had XP and a 120GB hard drive so my motive in using this and similar software was to regain as much free space as possible from the junk that Windows, and other software, generates and stores for no appreciable benefit to the computers user.

 

[josewails]

I did not realize that every time I visit a website it seems each and every image is downloaded into my hard drive even things that I didn't click on.

Today I went to Logitech's website to try and find the model that I own and that one of my dearly beloved(s) broke the dongle.
Every keyboard and it seems every mouse image was on my hard drive.

There is one benefit to using Recuva; I can look at what my son is looking at without technically snooping. I'm just going through the trash. I'm glad to say that his surfing runs definitely towards the PG.

As far as Eraser is concerned and for that matter CCleaner too, you get what you pay for.
The 21 day free BC Wipe made 95% of the files and and photos not recoverable.
There is one thing that is kind of irritating about the program; there is no indication that it is active - you can't tell if its working by any flashy movement.

I think I will check the privazer software out TOGG.
I've yet to see a good review, by that I mean someone who has actually checked all of the hoopla around each one of these file shredder programs.
If there is interest in this sort of thing I'll post back my results.