A humble request

[JFF]

To whom it may concern,

I'm trying eraser for the first time today. I've visited the site before, but I could never find the information I wanted in the time I had so I left the site without downloading anything and obviously without making any progress. All I wanted to confirm - before downloading and installing anything - was a very simple thing; will eraser "erase" external hard drives. It appears the answer is yes as I'm trying it now, but why isn't this topic easily found, with accessible information stating the fact?

I've read the user's guide, I've read the FAQ, I've read the posts in the support forum, including one from an individual who's response to another was "go read the FAQ", and there's no simple answer posted anywhere I could find. Again, why not? People have lots of external drives for backup, added space, and data sharing to name a few uses, but these drives can accumulate over time - as they have with me and begin to pile up. I have many (10) rarely used external drives that are simply too small to be of much use with today's 1TB, 2TB, and now larger hard disks. Erasing these old drives so they can be used by someone else, and the original owner (me in this case) can have some piece of mind about letting them go, would be a benefit to many.

Why not put a paragraph on the site and in one section of the user's guide that simply says "Eraser can be used on any external hard drive (with the following caveats/conditions/etc as necessary).". It would take 10 minutes, people like me could find the information without hunting for 30 minutes, and there would be fewer questions regarding externals (unless of course they're about permissions, which caused my first attempt to fail ).

Anyway, just a thought that would have helped me many months ago when I first came here, and I'm sure it would help others.

 

[DavidHB]

You have a point. But the small team of volunteers who write and support Eraser cannot be expected to think of everything all the time. And if we do refer people to the FAQ, it is because we think they are useful and they answer the questions that come up time and again.

I don't write the Eraser manual, but I have now included a new section on erasing complete drives in the FAQ topic on Getting to know Eraser 6. Will that be OK for the present?

David

 

[JFF]

Thanks David.

Yes, adding that section will be fine. If we can clarify that it will work on USB 2.0/3.0 (esata/Firewire???) attached external media that would be fantastic.

Obviously, I've already found the answer, but when you search for wiping, erasing, cleaning, etc., there's a dearth of recognition that people want to clean external media. I think that making the information readily accessible will help everyone, and possibly, begin to draw in more developers, helpers, etc.

So far, in my limited experience, Eraser is a well built program (I realize it's still undergoing changes) that I'm sure more people would like to know about and use.

BTW - My thanks to the developers that continue this effort. They're doing something positive for us all.

 

[DavidHB]

... adding that section will be fine. If we can clarify that it will work on USB 2.0/3.0 (esata/Firewire???) attached external media that would be fantastic.

Already done. I think the words "for example an external hard drive" cover the point.

Obviously, I've already found the answer, but when you search for wiping, erasing, cleaning, etc., there's a dearth of recognition that people want to clean external media. I think that making the information readily accessible will help everyone, and possibly, begin to draw in more developers, helpers, etc.

It is astonishing that, when so many people buy a shredder to deal with private information on paper, so few of them consider that their computer requires similar precautions. This might explain in part why Eraser 6, which has been open source from the outset, has attracted so little developer support.

BTW - My thanks to the developers that continue this effort. They're doing something positive for us all.

I know that Joel, who at the moment is "the developers", will be grateful for your support.

David

 

[Joel]

... adding that section will be fine. If we can clarify that it will work on USB 2.0/3.0 (esata/Firewire???) attached external media that would be fantastic.

I think, one of the good things about running from within Windows is that Eraser can erase any drive which Windows can read/write to (the exception here are network drives, but that's a different story)

Obviously, I've already found the answer, but when you search for wiping, erasing, cleaning, etc., there's a dearth of recognition that people want to clean external media. I think that making the information readily accessible will help everyone, and possibly, begin to draw in more developers, helpers, etc.

Agreed -- I do agree that the documentation could do better, but unfortunately docs are not my forte; any assistance rendered in this respect is greatly appreciated!

So far, in my limited experience, Eraser is a well built program (I realize it's still undergoing changes) that I'm sure more people would like to know about and use.

BTW - My thanks to the developers that continue this effort. They're doing something positive for us all.

Thank you! Words of encouragement like these always give me reason to continue developing for the project.