Hello all, I'm looking for a program that will "wipe" my free space. It's just a security measure I'd like to take. Is the Active KillDisk eraser program a good program to use? Is one overpass really sufficient? I don't think I have the patience for the DOD5220 wiping.
That depends on the size of your hard disk. It's said that with modern disk drives you don't need to overwrite space more than once. Whether you want to buy that is up to you. Is it necessary to overwrite slack space ? I'm not sure. Webroot's Window Washer can overwrite slack space. As for wiping free space, CCleaner can do that. Window Washer can do that too, although I don't really trust Webroot. You only want to wipe free space, not cookies, index.dat etc. ?? People often forget to remove/wipe Flash data. You can do that with CCleaner with certain inclusions and exclusions.
Majax, FYI -- An interesting exercise to perform is to extract and view all of the text that is contained in a volume’s free space. Using WinHex (specialist license), you can easily open the free space as a virtual file and run the “Gather Text” option. It’s fascinating to see the material that is retrieved. P.S.: R-Wipe&Clean is another option for wiping a volume’s free space.
Wow, I never knew Ccleaner could do that. I had never really paid attention to that feature. I went ahead and did 1 pass. Update: I used Winhex and Ccleaner didn't work. I found a naughty website I visited like 2 years ago. Should I just use the eraser program? Wow, I was able to pull up over 2000 pictures that I thought were deleted. One of them was a photocopy of my SSN. Man, I definitely want to do a free space wipe. Ccleaner didn't work at all.
I wouldn't use CCleaner for that purpose. Use software dedicated to the purpose of drive and/or free-space sanitizing. Heidi's free 'Eraser' continues to top my list.
I am using BCwipe right now. It is recommended by Bruce Schneier. I also have a liscence for R-Wipe. I am going to pass on Eraser for a while since it destroyed my USB stick. I also get odd behavior from it when I wipe files on my desktop (Vista 64 bit). It wipes and then leaves an icon. It eventually disappears, but why is it left there in the first place? I don't trust it anymore.
Two other great programs. I should have qualified 'Eraser'....I like versions 5.8.4 and before...available at SourceForge.
hi. I used eraser from Code: http://eraser.heidi.ie/ . It's free, has command line, many wipe methods from 1 pass to gutmann, can erase ADS and cluster tip area.
I don’t use Eraser myself (preferring R-Wipe&Clean), but I suspect that the desktop file icon problem you describe can be ameliorated by pressing the F5 (“refresh”) key -- i.e., the issue is that the display isn’t refreshed after the wipe operation for some reason.
