Questions on some errors.

NightSky

New Member
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)

C:\$RECYCLE.BIN\S-1-5-21-748510194-217282370-3783705229-1000\$RD96SV5.tmp\MFT_DIR\0\1\1\3\2 did not have its cluster tips erased because of the following error: The specified path, file name, or both are too long. The fully qualified file name must be less than 260 characters, and the directory name must be less than 248 characters.

C:\$RECYCLE.BIN\S-1-5-21-748510194-217282370-3783705229-1000\$RS08PRZ.tmp\MFT_DIR\0\0\2\4\5 did not have its cluster tips erased because of the following error: The specified path, file name, or both are too long. The fully qualified file name must be less than 260 characters, and the directory name must be less than 248 characters.

C:\Boot 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)
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Search\Data\Applications\Windows\Projects\SystemIndex\SystemIndex.Ntfy21.gthr did not have its cluster tips erased. The error returned was: The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070020)
C:\Users\AppData\Local\Temp\IswTmp\Logs\FFApi.swl did not have its cluster tips erased. The error returned was: The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070020)




These are some samples of the errors I receive. Are these errors of any importance? If so, what would you recommend in order to solve them? The recycle bin errors have me curious.
Another question I have is that I'm wondering if when Eraser ends with the disk space error and I have to manually remove the files; is it as effective as if the process had finished completely, besides the MFT problem, is it still effective in terms of overwriting the freespace and the cluster tips, making them irrecoverable?
My third question is in relation to cluster tip failures; are my previous questions in any way related to them? I ask because I've noticed that on other free space wiping programs, it automatically fails when it attempts to wipe file slacks but Eraser at least gives an attempt at doing it and is probably successful unless my previous questions are of any serious concern. I'm running on Windows Vista Home Basic; if that's of any help.
Thanks for your help and for the great program!
 
The file accress errors are pretty typical when you are trying to erase free space on the system drive. They are a function of the fact that security and file system protection are implemented in Windows in a very heavy-handed way, with no user option to change this.

The recycle bin errors are what they say. They look like files left over from some updating process. See whether the Recycle Bin will erase. If it won't, try emptying it and (when you have the time to spare) erase free space again. Sometimes (and this has always been an issue with Windows), files can linger in the Recycle Bin and refuse to be deleted; only finding some way of deleting the Recycled folder fixes this problem.

If Eraser fails as you describe, typically all or nearly all free space and all accessible cluster tips are erased, but the unused entries in the MFT are not. If you then run a recovery utility such as Recuva, you will usually find that file names are recoverable, but the contents of the files are not.

For the reasons I gave above, cluster tip erase failures are a fact of life. This is a potential security issue, but, for most people not a large one, because the residual data in cluster tips is not accessible to any program that uses the file system to access data. Only a technically capable, well funded and lucky opponent will be able to retrieve significant amounts of private user data from cluster tips. As I say again and again, the biggest danger to user privacy is the files squirrelled away in odd places by Windows and applications in odd places the user knows nothing about. For example, Flash Player caches user data on my systems in no fewer than 3 separate locations for each user.

David
 
Thanks a lot for the help! I agree with what you said of the danger in terms of privacy when not deleting unknown files. You've probably posted on this before but I'll ask just in case: How did you find that flash player cache and what other general tips do you have knowledge of for other common programs people use that might have personal information? If you've explained similar discoveries before, I'd happy to read if you post the link. Another question I have is what method would you recommend in order to delete that recycle bin folder? I tried booting into safe mode but that didn't work. Thanks!
 
You should be able to clear your recycle bin errors by following http://bbs.heidi.ie/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=5708.

Most of such files can be found in your local application data folder, %LOCALAPPDATA% in post-XP systems. In XP, it's %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data. But please don't erase the whole %LOCALAPPDATA% folder...
 
Thanks a lot for the tips! I'm the only user on my computer besides the guest account, which is turned off. My recycle bin is empty but I still can't delete the $Recycle.bin folder. I may be doing something wrong but I looked up some info related to it and this is what I found:

Corrupted Recycle Bin Problem
Open Explorer.
Press the 'Alt' key for 5 seconds, this will display the File Edit View Tools menu.
From the Tools menu, select View
Click the radio button next to 'Show hidden files and folders'
In Windows Explorer, view your c: drive
Locate a file in the root called: $Recycle.bin. Delete this file.
Click 'Yes' to the warning.
A new $Recycle.bin file will be created.
Any corruption will be cured.
http://www.computerperformance.co.u...recycle_bin.htm#Corrupted_Recycle_Bin_Problem

Could it be that this is the reason why I can't delete it for good? I think it may have some relation to it because I did manage to get some of the files in that folder to go away but it just created a new one like that information stated. Maybe this is a problem for Vista users in which the recycle bin keeps replacing itself and hence when we try to run Eraser on it, the same cluster tip errors keep showing up because the files with long names are still there. I'm not sure though so if I misinterpreted your advice or if I missed a step, feel free to correct me. Thanks! :D
 
I think that you have pretty much got to the bottom of the issue with the Recycle Bin. The fact that Windows re-creates it is not the issue; it is getting rid of the old one that fixes the problems. If any corruption is cured in the way you describe, residual errors relating to cluster tips are not a major problem; indeed, they are a fact of life.

As regards discovering the locations of the Flash Player cache files, I searched on the Net, as you did, and in this case came across a range of alternative suggestions. I reasoned that an OS-aware application, as most are these days, would tend to store the cache in %Appdata% (which is, of course, a hidden folder). Then it's a matter of looking there (there are Local, LocalLow and Roaming sub-folders, all of which need to be investigated, though LocalLow is less used) for the name of the maker and/or the name of the application. In this case, though all the files are in the Roaming sub-folder, there is one cache area in the Adobe/Flash Player path and two more in the Macromedia path. The three paths in full (on my Vista and Windows 7 machines; XP will be different) are:

C:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Flash Player\AssetCache
C:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Roaming\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects
C:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Roaming\Macromedia\Flash Player\macromedia.com\support\flashplayer\sys

All contain data a user might wish to erase; so this is a classic case where building an Eraser 6 task is well worth the effort, particularly as the only facility Adobe provides for deleting (not erasing) this data is the Flash Player Control Panel hosted on its website.

David
 
Whoa, thanks a lot! Three different places; tips like these are good because most people don't know about them. I'm sure this topic will be of help to many. Thanks again guys! :D
 
It's worth adding that CCleaner does a good job of finding and deleting the Flash Player files, but only provides a very limited erasing capability, which is not enabled by default.

David
 
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