eraser completed with errors

[rmits]

I was trying to wipe the unused c: with just 1 pass.

Eraser ran for 2-3 days and gave an output - Completed with errors. I have 138G hard drive out of which ~100G is used up. Surprisingly if I go into c: and add up all the space its only 40G. But thats another topic.

Does this mean it finished the erase? Even if a few things are not erased I don't care that much. However, if nothing was erased because of the errors listed below than I care and want inputs as to how to solve

There are 2 types of errors
a) Session: Thursday, June 17, 2010 10:40:34 PM
Thursday, June 17, 2010 10:40:34 PM Error C:\ did not have its cluster tips erased because of the following error: The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070020)
b) Session: Thursday, June 17, 2010 10:40:34 PM
Thursday, June 17, 2010 10:45:35 PM Error C:\d0ba8dcf75cd8a5d0e did not have its cluster tips erased because of the following error: Access is denied. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070005 (E_ACCESSDENIED))

 

[DavidHB]

I'm guessing that you are using version 6.0.7.

There are some files to which Windows will not allow Eraser (or any other program) access, under any circumstances, and the cluster tips of these files cannot be erased. This is not likely to be a major privacy/security issue in practice, but the developers feel that users should be aware of the situation. However, in the development builds, these routine 'errors' have been downgraded to warnings or information, which is more appropriate in my view.

So you don't have a problem with the 'errors' in the log. But, to test your free space erase, you can run a file recovery program such as Recuva to see what it will recover. On a system drive, it is likely that it will identify a fair number of files. But most if not all of them will be system or utility files in which you will have no interest, or the very files that Eraser itself used to erase the free space. Incidentally, the number of passes in the erasing method is not relevant to this discussion. For a free space erase, the default single pass should be entirely sufficient.

Where you might have a problem is with the fact that Eraser may have left some of its wiping files on the drive, and thereby reduced the free space. There is an FAQ topic on this issue, and I suggest that, before you test your free space erase, you read this topic and delete (not erase) any Eraser-generated files and folders you find. That should restore any lost free space.

Joel is working on the linked problems of the free space wipe being very slow and sometimes failing to complete and/or leaving files behind. My work on beta testing the development builds suggests that he is making significant progress, but this rather complex problem is not fully fixed yet. Even so, I can erase the free space on a non-system drive more quickly and fully with a recent development build than I can with Eraser 6.0.7. Sadly, erasing free space on a system drive is not yet so reliable, but, even there, Joel has made significant progress in the last few days.

I hope that this explains things.

David