I have two machines.
The newer one is used with Windows XP or with Windows 9x. The older one is used with MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1 and does not contain a network card.
I want to have the ability to transfer a file or a file tree between these two machines without a risk of a transfer of additional bytes which do not belong to the transfered files, filenames, directory names and time stamps.
I think of the use of removable disks e.g. Zip® Disks, floppy disks and rewritable CD's to perform the transfer.
The problem is, that a machine can only read and write complete sectors.
The sectors of a floppy disk for example typically have a size of 512 bytes. If a file that is written to a floppy disk does not fit in a multiple of 512 bytes, the last sector written will contain data beyond the end of the file. This data was in the memory of the writing machine and does not belong to the written file. If I insert the written disk in the other machine and copy my file to its hard disk, there is a chance, that the data byond the end of the file will also be copied to the hard disk.
This could result in a transfer of data that I don't want to transfer between the two machines.
To avoid this unwished additional data transfer I could overwrite the slack space of the removable disk with eraser or erased just before to remove the disk of or just after insert it in a machine. For this purpose even a single overwriting pass will be sufficient. The overwritten data may be recoverable on the removable disk but it will not be copied to the other machine.
So the problem of unwished data transfer seems to be solved.
But I'm afraid that the problem could not be solved by the way I wrote about.
If files and directories are copied to a disk not only sectors with file data are copied to the disk. There are also sectors copied to the FAT and to the directory structure of the disk. The data e.g. filenames and directory names will also seldom fit exactly in a multiple of one sector. The last sector written to the FAT or directory structure will also be filled up with data that should not be copied to the other machine.
But I wonder if eraser or eraserd will wipe the free space of the FAT or the directory structure when wiping "Unused Disk Space".
I also wonder if eraser or eraserd will wipe the cluster tips of clusters occupied by directories when wiping "Unused Disk Space".
Further Questions are:
Does eraser or eraserd overwrite names of previously deleted directories (not only of previously deleted files) when wiping "Unused Disk Space"?
Does eraser or eraserd overwrite names of subdirectories and files which were contained in a previously deleted directory when wiping "Unused Disk Space"?
But the main question is how to perform a data transfer between my machines without a risk of a transfer of additional data I don't want to transfer.
Any help will be appreciated.
The newer one is used with Windows XP or with Windows 9x. The older one is used with MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1 and does not contain a network card.
I want to have the ability to transfer a file or a file tree between these two machines without a risk of a transfer of additional bytes which do not belong to the transfered files, filenames, directory names and time stamps.
I think of the use of removable disks e.g. Zip® Disks, floppy disks and rewritable CD's to perform the transfer.
The problem is, that a machine can only read and write complete sectors.
The sectors of a floppy disk for example typically have a size of 512 bytes. If a file that is written to a floppy disk does not fit in a multiple of 512 bytes, the last sector written will contain data beyond the end of the file. This data was in the memory of the writing machine and does not belong to the written file. If I insert the written disk in the other machine and copy my file to its hard disk, there is a chance, that the data byond the end of the file will also be copied to the hard disk.
This could result in a transfer of data that I don't want to transfer between the two machines.
To avoid this unwished additional data transfer I could overwrite the slack space of the removable disk with eraser or erased just before to remove the disk of or just after insert it in a machine. For this purpose even a single overwriting pass will be sufficient. The overwritten data may be recoverable on the removable disk but it will not be copied to the other machine.
So the problem of unwished data transfer seems to be solved.
But I'm afraid that the problem could not be solved by the way I wrote about.
If files and directories are copied to a disk not only sectors with file data are copied to the disk. There are also sectors copied to the FAT and to the directory structure of the disk. The data e.g. filenames and directory names will also seldom fit exactly in a multiple of one sector. The last sector written to the FAT or directory structure will also be filled up with data that should not be copied to the other machine.
But I wonder if eraser or eraserd will wipe the free space of the FAT or the directory structure when wiping "Unused Disk Space".
I also wonder if eraser or eraserd will wipe the cluster tips of clusters occupied by directories when wiping "Unused Disk Space".
Further Questions are:
Does eraser or eraserd overwrite names of previously deleted directories (not only of previously deleted files) when wiping "Unused Disk Space"?
Does eraser or eraserd overwrite names of subdirectories and files which were contained in a previously deleted directory when wiping "Unused Disk Space"?
But the main question is how to perform a data transfer between my machines without a risk of a transfer of additional data I don't want to transfer.
Any help will be appreciated.