Can't erase a single small file

jt

New Member
I’ve found that when I use the shell extension in I.E. to erase a single small file, it won’t erase. A single large file will erase (several mb), but a single file of only a few k doesn’t erase. Multiple small files erased together work fine.

Anyone else encountered this? Seems to be a pretty major bug. Or am I missing something?...
 
Please identify what version of Eraser. If it is 5.8, it is still in early beta. I noted The same problem you have.The Explorer feature also works inconsistancely and not on all sub folders within the same folder. I posted on it http://www.cipherserver.com/phpbb2/view ... 960a5c0c70 I have gone back to Eraser 5.7. I can erase C:/documents and settings/user name/cookies Whitch has the cookies for IE. But when I chose (going from username folder) user name/Local settings/Temperary internet Files I can"t erase there is no context menu option for it, I have to delete the files. Oh, for some reason the Admin considers these problems "Nothing Major" :shock:
 
Thanks for the response. Sorry, I should have specified I am using 5.7.

Carver said:
Oh, for some reason the Admin considers these problems "Nothing Major" :shock:

Oh. Umm… well... I guess it's time to remind myself that it's free. :roll:
 
jt said:
Thanks for the response. Sorry, I should have specified I am using 5.7.

Carver said:
Oh, for some reason the Admin considers these problems "Nothing Major" :shock:

Oh. Umm… well... I guess it's time to remind myself that it's free. :roll:
Unless you count the hours installing;testing;reconfiguring, and retesting over and over and then repairing the operating system and programs of your computer.
 
If your drive is NTFS format, the problem may be related to the fact that very small files can reside entirely within the MFT.
 
Glenn said:
If your drive is NTFS format, the problem may be related to the fact that very small files can reside entirely within the MFT.

Thanks, you pegged it. The same 1k file that wouldn’t erase from my NTFS drive would properly erase from a FAT32 drive.

Maybe that can be corrected in the future; for now I’ll just keep that limitation in mind.

Thanks
 
This will be looked into. Do you mean it says it is erased and just does nothing or is it that the file still exists within the Data area/MFT?

The size 1k,2k etc are you certain it was not marked as readonly or system?

Garrett
 
admin said:
This will be looked into. Do you mean it says it is erased and just does nothing or is it that the file still exists within the Data area/MFT?

The size 1k,2k etc are you certain it was not marked as readonly or system?

Garrett

Thanks for responding. This is within Windows Explorer – I right-click on a file, select Erase, I get the Confirm Erasing box, select Yes, and the box disappears but the file is still visible in Explorer. I see no progress box, though it might be appearing so fast that I don’t see it. It seems to behave the same way as if No is selected in the Confirm Erasing box.

I don’t know how large a file has to be to be erased, but the problem has occurred with a 9k file. Combining two or more small files works fine, no matter how small.

The files are not read-only or system files.

Thanks
 
Cannot erase single small file: some observations

I am experiencing the same problem as reported by other users (see jt posting above, as well as http://www.cipherserver.com/phpbb2/view ... 4892fa4466)

In Windows Explorer, when I want to erase a small file (few kBytes) by right clicking the file and selecting “Erase”, the “Erasing report” window displays the following message:

“Task completed. All data could NOT be erased”
the “Failures” field (lower half of the “Erasing report” window) displays “failed” followed by the full path of the file I attempted to delete.


In addition, I tried the following two things:

a) moved the problematic file to another folder and tried to erase it from that other folder.
Result: got error message “File locked by another process. Do you want to Erase after restart?” (the file was a small text (.txt) file I had created, which was not used by any application at that time (it was not an index.dat file or the like). The fact that I was able to move the file to another folder without problem should prove that the file was not locked by an application).

b) selected simultaneously two files to be erased (the one I wanted to erase + another file in that directory)
Result: both files erased without any failure message (i.e. the initial file, which would not erase when selected alone, got erased without any problem when part of a multiple file erasing process, even when the second file is a also a small file).


Computer configuration:
OS: Windows XP home edition, Service Pack 2
File system: NTFS

Hope this can help to debug the issue.

Thanks for the great and very convenient tool that Eraser is.
 
Back
Top