Eraser 6.0.6.1376 - erase recycle bin

FiliusD

New Member
Hi there!

I encountered the following problem with the latest Eraser release using Windows 7 32-bit.
When erasing the recycle bin (right-click -> eraser -> erase), the task ALWAYS "completed with errors" like "Access to the path 'C:\$RECYCLE.BIN\S-1-5-21-3698056908-3583129372-3066424413-1000\$RGW46XJ\xxx' is denied." (there are a couple of such error log entries, but all are the same kind).

a second "feature" is, that when right-clicking on the recycle bin, the Eraser symbol shows twice



Any hint's how to get Eraser v6 working?

I'm going to install 5.8.8 and see whether this version checks out.

take care

[EDIT] 5.8.8 runs smooth as candy....at least there are no error messages displays.
 
Version 5.8.x can work under Windows 7, but it is obsolescent. Recent builds of Version 6 are working much better than build 1376; personally, I would advise going back to version 6 when the next full release appears; Joel has said that this will be later this month, but I'm not holding my breath ...

David
 
DavidHB said:
Version 5.8.x can work under Windows 7, but it is obsolescent. Recent builds of Version 6 are working much better than build 1376; personally, I would advise going back to version 6 when the next full release appears; Joel has said that this will be later this month, but I'm not holding my breath ...

David

ok, thx for the advice !
 
I have a very similar problem with Windows 7 64 bit - Eraser seems to fail to erase absolutely standard files from the recycle bin because of the following message
Session: 13 March 2010 10:23:03
13 March 2010 10:24:45 Error Access is denied. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070005 (E_ACCESSDENIED))
I get 5 error messages, all the same, about 100 seconds apart.
The previous version of eraser seemed to work fine as was mentioned. - this version seems to be a big regression in terms of end user interface, speed and reliability.
 
My personal view is that the developers made a big mistake in billing build 1376 as stable before it was ready for prime time, particularly under Windows 7. The recent nightly builds are not perfect, but they are a lot better than 1376. I can only hope that the upcoming new issue will be better yet in terms of usability.

Eraser is in transition. The very different security environment of Vista and now Windows 7, as compared with, say, XP, coupled with the fact that any developing code base has a finite life, seems to have made a re-write essential. For myself, I prefer the new user interface, though it's bound to be a matter of personal opinion. The one feature I miss from version 5 is the link to DBAN, but that is not really possible in version 6, because DBAN is currently not a supported product.

David
 
I can understand how Vista and Windows 7 have changed a lot in terms of security, but maybe I was working in blissful ignorance when I had the previous version on Vista and nothinh was getting deleted or overwritten - it seemed simplicitly itself in that I just had to specify the use of Eraser when I wanted the recycle bin empltied and it just did it, with a good little dialogue showing what was happening in terms of progress. Now I seem to get a task scheduled and then started, with a fair delay. Then after a rather long time (certainly longer than I remember under Vista) I get a message saying it ended with errors and I have to go and chase up the log to find a pretty obscure message which failes to tell me which file it had a problem with. I get no progress message saying how the erasing is progressing. I then go to the recycle bin and just tell it to erase the (absolutely standard) files and it does it, no trouble. It just does not seem to work for basic things, quite apart from the end user interface issues. I guess I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed for the next stable build.
 
Those errors you see in the log happen without reason. I have it myself, and I can't pinpoint it to anything except file permissions gone berserk. Emptying the recycle bin doesn't delete those files (yes.) and I believe that when Eraser 5 reaches those files they are just ignored (maybe logged to the log, which few pay attention to) giving the (false) impression of security. When writing v6 I felt this is the wrong thing to do, so it's just displayed more prominently now.

To see the progress of the erasure, you can just open up the Eraser program and double-click on the running task. The rationale for this design is dealt with in other threads, and I won't dwell on it here.
 
Thanks for your feedback Joel. I appreciate you know a lot more about this than I do but I'd like to take you up on two points though.
First of all I suspect the errors do occurr for a reason, its just that we don't understand the actual reason yet, second, running "Empty the recycle bin" does remove the files in the sense that they are no longer visible in the recycle bin (they have previously been 'removed' from the file system, so unless they are lurking in some other state I don't know where they have gone - obviously they have not been overwritten since Eraser did not work on them (I guess its possible this is what you meant and I apologise if I have misunderstood you). As I posted, and I'm sure you have seen it yourself, there is a return code in the log (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070005 (E_ACCESSDENIED)) which I don't know how to interpret - it ought to be possible to work out from this what is happening, but I'll grant you the documentation on these things sometimes leaves a lot to be desired.
Like most other people I wasn't really aware of the log in V5 so you may be right about us having been lulled into a false sense of security previously - could you do me a favour and point me to the thread discussing the design rationale for the lack of a visible progress bar, just so that I don't have to pore through thousands of threads to find it please?
 
Bernard46 said:
First of all I suspect the errors do occurr for a reason, its just that we don't understand the actual reason yet, second, running "Empty the recycle bin" does remove the files in the sense that they are no longer visible in the recycle bin (they have previously been 'removed' from the file system, so unless they are lurking in some other state I don't know where they have gone - obviously they have not been overwritten since Eraser did not work on them (I guess its possible this is what you meant and I apologise if I have misunderstood you).
Yes, it's not visible in the recycle bin but it is still in the file system, if you used another disk viewer you'll see the files all there.

Bernard46 said:
point me to the thread discussing the design rationale for the lack of a visible progress bar, just so that I don't have to pore through thousands of threads to find it please?
I can't remember the thread directly, but I think there's some here and some here. It's gone on in so many places I think it's more than these... How many times, I'm not sure, but I do know that I've grown tired of explaining it again and again...
 
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