erasing free space - folders

[thaKing]

i have a folder, M:\Account_info\ that i use for, well, account info. :lol: this is private info that i would not like to be recovered...here's what i was thinking of doing - erasing the contents of the folder and then erasing free space...i don't want to erase all contents on M nor do i want to erase all free space on M, just the contents of the \Account_info directory...

a few questions:
1 - is this a good method to make sure the data of this directory is gone? reason i was thinking of this route is because some files are deleted manually and i would only run eraser monthly - hence some files will already be deleted and i'd use the free space option to get those that were deleted manually...
2 - can i erase free space of a directory like this, instead of the entire drive?
3 - the faq says erasing free space should not be done too many times since it really works the drive...if i'm only doing this on the directory, is this true as well? should i not attempt this say monthly?

now that i think about it, just wonder if i could save myself a lot of time and instead of manually deleting any files just run eraser to remove the files...what to do, what to do....

 

[DavidHB]

Erasing the files then free space is the right approach in your case. I see you are using a separate drive for your data. That, too, is a good idea; you can usually get a cleaner erase of free space (i.e. fewer recoverable files) on a non-system drive.

You can't erase the free space of a directory. There is no such thing; free space 'belongs' to the drive as a whole.

Monthly running of a free space erase should not be a problem, unless the drive is already on its last legs (you do keep backups, don't you?). You could use the scheduler for this.

To test the erasure, use a good file recovery program (e.g. Recuva). It will probably find at least some recoverable files, but not the ones you are concerned about.

David

 

[thaKing]

ok, that's what i was thinking - free space cleaning will be on all of M drive and not just a directory...and you're right, all backed up on and this is not the system drive.

thanks for the tips, i feel better about what i'm doing now...