Eraser Operation

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Hello all!

Congratulations for the handy software !

I would like to ask you some quick questions because I am a bit afraid of it.

1.There is no possibility while Eraser erases free space to delete 1 or 2 bytes or clusters of a small or big file, right? (For the program I mean to get confused of a cross linked file or something else ?)
2.There are some MFT entries in a hard disk I did a data recovery. I need to ask you, Eraser gets rid of all unused-old MFT entries ? And if yes, it is doing it at the end of the operation? When the free space of the disk has finished and Eraser is keeping doing some work on the drive?

Thanks in advance!

 

[DavidHB]

I would like to ask you some quick questions because I am a bit afraid of it.

You are very wise. Eraser is one of those applications that need to be used with thought and care, and to that end a little fear is no bad thing. You might like to read the FAQ topic "Getting to know Eraser 6" which will help you get familiar with what Eraser does.

There is no possibility while Eraser erases free space to delete 1 or 2 bytes or clusters of a small or big file, right? (For the program I mean to get confused of a cross linked file or something else ?)

Short answer: this is most unlikely. Long answer: assuming you are using the default erasing method, Eraser erases free space by writing randomly named files with random content until the drive is full, and then deleting those files. So Eraser can only write in space that the file system has marked as free.

We do get occasional complaints of data loss after Eraser has been used, but none has been documented in such a way that Eraser has been found to be the cause of the problem. In my experience (particularly with NTFS), Eraser may crash when erasing a drive with problems, but I have never seen a free space erase (on Eraser 5 or Eraser 6) overwrite non-deleted files. If you have concerns about your target drive, run a disk check.

There are some MFT entries in a hard disk I did a data recovery. I need to ask you, Eraser gets rid of all unused-old MFT entries ? And if yes, it is doing it at the end of the operation? When the free space of the disk has finished and Eraser is keeping doing some work on the drive?

Yes, this is how the current version of Eraser works. I believe Joel was thinking about moving the clearing of MFT entries to the beginning of the process in the next version of Eraser, but AFAIK that has not been implemented even in the current beta builds.

Because of the way the NTFS file system works, you should expect a file recovery program such as Recuva to find some recoverable files even after a free space erase, especially on a system drive. In particular, you need to turn off System Restore for non-system drives and shadow copies for all drives, and delete all Restore Points you are unlikely to use; these features store copies of deleted files in space not marked as free, so those copies will remain, and be recoverable, after a free space erase.

David

 

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Thank you for your answers!