I want to delete free space on a hard disk and the Paragon GUI says the disk will have the same amount of space after the delete as before. Is that right. Is it because free space is not counted as used space. By free I mean deleted stuff that is deleted by recycle bin and so not really deleted
David, if the "deleted" stuff you're trying to free up is in the RecycleBin, it can be freed up simply by <right-click>ing your Trash Can and selecting "Empty Recycle Bin"... this will free up any space being held by previously deleted files. At this point, FREE Space is really FREE Space.
If you are talking about overwriting free space - after overwrite amount of free space will be the same as before.
A simple defrag will do the same, it consolidates free space, so it is also good for privacy, since it will be zeroed. Better to run outside of OS though, I boot Windows USB and run CMD from there: defrag c: /d /u
I don't want to hijack the thread but please allow me: Isn't there a difference, once the recycle bin has been emptied, between HDD's and SSD's (with TRIM) with respect to overwriting and with respect to defrag? I thought overwriting and defrag on a SSD was not recommended cq. needed. Or am I now wrong?
If you have TRIM enabled and working you shouldn't have to overwrite deleted data. I also wouldn't advise you to defrag SSD.
Wouldn't defrag overwrite previous data only by chance (while moving data to consolidate it)? There could still be deleted data that could be restored from sectors that were not affected by defrager.
Here is an interesting article I found. Not sure of its relevance or accuracy https://www.magnetforensics.com/com...pect-ran-ccleaner-to-get-rid-of-the-evidence/
Hard to tell from article if those artifacts are really collected from pagefile and hybernation file. You can disable hibernation if not needed and set pagefile to be deleted upon system shutdown: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/314834/how-to-clear-the-windows-paging-file-at-shutdown You can also use SBIE for browsing and set container on RamDisk.
If someone is that much knowledgeable that he is using no pagelile/encrypted pagefile/running SBIE in ramdisk then he must also know that it is better to use a live linux system & even then there are ways to investigate depending on how much resources govt is willing to put into the investigation. On internet there is no such thing as 100% anonymity/deletion,from hardware at home to servers abroad there is always something.
FREE SPACE usually refers to all disk "clusters" (not blocks) that are currently not allocated for any FileSystem use. SLACK SPACE is the space in a disk cluster between the end of the real used content of the cluster and the actual cluster end itself. If the file content ends before the actual end of the allocated cluster, from there to the end of the cluster is SLACK SPACE (it's great for Forensic Analysis).
...but remember, if you start running these Slack Space cleaners, it's almost the same as running defragment processes on your FileSystems... if you run a disk imaging System, it will most likely create massive (well, maybe not massive but, for sure, substantial) changes to your Differential & Incremental images.
Thanks Rollback. i ran recuva looking for a file i accidently deleted and found 500 files. It seems good housekeeping to get rid of these permanently even though they are not particularly private