another noob question

jwall

New Member
I want to wipe free space on my HD. If I choose the default settings (I have Win XP SP2) and the three pass option, will it be safe?
Should I turn off my anti virus. Should I do a restore point in System Restore just to be sure?

Thanks for your patience.
 
Hi jwall

You should be ok. If you are worried make a backup of all your important files first.
 
Thanks, I finally got enough nerve to try a free space wipe and using the default settings, every thing went well, it took less than an hour.
I used the one pass method on my 20 gig HD laptop. Is that adequate? Or should I use more passes? I'm just an average home user with nothing to hide. :lol: :)

Thanks again.

EDIT: If you're wondering why I'm so paranoid, I've been burned before by a couple of other wipers a couple of years ago, Wipe & Clean and BCWipe, probably due to my inexperience, but none the less....
I did find though, that after a free space wipe and defrag, things ran a bit faster.
 
jwall said:
Thanks, I finally got enough nerve to try a free space wipe and using the default settings, every thing went well, it took less than an hour.
I used the one pass method on my 20 gig HD laptop. Is that adequate? Or should I use more passes? I'm just an average home user with nothing to hide. :lol: :)

Thanks again.

EDIT: If you're wondering why I'm so paranoid, I've been burned before by a couple of other wipers a couple of years ago, Wipe & Clean and BCWipe, probably due to my inexperience, but none the less....
I did find though, that after a free space wipe and defrag, things ran a bit faster.
it was probably the defrag that made the computer run faster - the freespace wipe shouldn't make such a big difference to the speed at which your computer will run.

For added security I would suggest doing another freespace wipe after doing a defrag. But I would suggest doing just a 1 pass - defrag - 1 pass (without closing down the computer between the three operations). I don't see the need for doing anything more than that.
 
Hi jwall :)

If you are really paranoid you could run Ccleaner first to remove histories etc, before any Eraser pass.
 
Yeah, I use Ccleaner all the time.
Everything just seems to run better after a through cleaning and wipe.

Thanks to all again. :D
 
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