Eraserd: failed to erase pagefile.sys on FAT32 hard disk

D

DracoArum

New Member
Greetings to all here. This is my first post and I hope that someone here can help me with a problem I'm having.

What I am trying to do is erase pagefile.sys on my hard-disk using the DOS version of Eraser. My disk is setup w/2 different partitions - Primary has Vista 64-bit installed as primary w/NTFS and 2nd one is where I have my pagefile, and is formatted with the FAT32 file system - also primary. In the past, I've used XP Pro 32-bit and booted the computer using a Windows 98 SE startup disk that I downloaded from bootdisk.com. I would then erase the pagefile with no problem, but now that I have installed Vista Ultimate 64-bit, I get the following error:

"Eraserd: failed to erase pagefile.sys"

I would use the 64-bit Eraser application in Vista, but I don't trust the operating system to do this, as most erasing programs just mark the file for erasing on the next boot, but can I be sure that nothing from the original pagefile is written to the new one before it's erased? That's why I use EraserD.

Anyway, Is there some kind of hidden lock on the pagefile.sys that wasn't around in XP Pro but now is in Vista? I've tried clearing the attributes of the file using the DOS "attrib" command, but that didn't solve the problem. Other files erase fine, btw. Can anyone throw me a bone, here? Thanks :)
 
DracoArum said:
I would use the 64-bit Eraser application in Vista, but I don't trust the operating system to do this, as most erasing programs just mark the file for erasing on the next boot, but can I be sure that nothing from the original pagefile is written to the new one before it's erased? That's why I use EraserD.
Click to expand...
So you're erasing your page file from Windows 98? There shouldn't be any differences since your page file is on a FAT32 partition.

EraserD has been deprecated. There isn't any extra security in using EraserD over the Windows versions as Windows I/O has been shown to be reliable and we use all the available write-through flags so the I/O goes straight to disk.

Instead of erasing the page file, why don't you set the page file to a constant size such that the page file won't move and ask Windows to clear the page file at shutdown. This will overwrite the page file with zeroes at every shut down and should effectively do the same thing. Personally, I won't meddle with these internals if there are other alternatives.

Joel
 
It had been implemented in Win2k IIRC, In Eraser there should be an option you can set which will get Eraser to set the setting for you (instead of digging through group policy etc)

Joel
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top