Is there a workaround: Eraser not erasing compressed files

[zipzap]

Is there a workaround or an alternate utility that permits erasing of compressed NTFS files on Vista OS that remain in unused disk space?

I set my hard drive to compress files a while ago to free up disk space but now its getting used up. Seems like Eraser 5 did erase compressed files. Or perhaps I was using ver 5 before compressing, can't recall.

 

[DavidHB]

Re: Is there a workaround: Eraser not erasing compressed fil

Eraser 5 did have (or claim) a capability to erase compressed files, but file corruption was reported, so Joel has deliberately not included the feature in Eraser 6. I do not recall offhand whether there are any plans to reinstate the feature.

To help others reading this thread, I should also make it clear that what we are talking about is files compressed by the file system. Eraser has no problem in dealing with files compressed by programs, in formats such as ZIP, RAR 7Z and so on.

David

 

[Joel]

Re: Is there a workaround: Eraser not erasing compressed fil

Compressed files which are in unused disk space imply that those files are already deleted. A normal unused disk space erase will wipe those files, since they no longer exist (and Eraser doesn't care that they were compressed, either -- actually, no programs know that they are unless they are designed to recover those files.)