Problems w/ Eraser and free space fixed?

P

phkhgh

Member
Have seen some comments on a few sites about problems w/ Eraser and erasing free space. May be old info and later versions may have fixed this. One page is here: http://www.techsupportalert.com/best_46 ... ies.htm#40

Where in part, it says, "Be aware that the current version of Eraser has a bug that is evident if you select the option to erase unused disk space. Stay well clear of that option as you may end up corrupting your drive."

Note: it doesn't say what version of Eraser they're talking about.

The History page on Heidi's site mentions that v5.82 fixed some sort of issue w/ free space, but doesn't say what it was.

What was the problem(s) w/ erasing free space, and have these been totally fixed in v5.82?
 
Try reading at least the first page of post titles on any forum:

http://bbs.heidi.ie/viewtopic.php?t=233 ... c3a208b472 . Pete
Click to expand...

My original question was, and is: What was the problem(s) w/ erasing free space, and have these been totally fixed in v5.82? The other post you linked doesn't address that.

Havin' a bad day were you, or were you just born a j_ _ _ a_ _?:)
Try being a little nicer - people seem to like it.:wink:

FYI - I did a search on the site & came up w/ nothin'. However, site search engines often are woefully inaccurate. I did provide a link to one site that discussed the problem.

So, if anyone knows what the actual problem was, I'd like to know something about it.

Thanks.
 
(Sigh) still on the first page of this forum.....

http://bbs.heidi.ie/viewtopic.php?t=233 ... 5b16a06a8d

In brief - if the "Only first and last 2KB" option (#5) was used as the method for erasing either Files or Unused Disk Space, it had a tendency to screw up almost everyone's computer that used it.

It affected users' of v.5.81 (and possibly version 5.8, I'm not sure).

"Option #5" no longer exists in the current release version 5.82 nor the latest beta.
 
OK, Pete. Here, I'll show you how easy it is:

Thanks for the links, Pete.

Don't know how I missed those! My searches failed to turn those up. Boy, is my face RED!

Sometimes, my fingers get so tired, I just can't type another letter. Your links saved the day!

There - see how easy it is? Try it. People often respond quite favorably. Relax, tomorrow will probably be better.
 
Free Space Erase Problems Continue

Last night I totally uninstalled my previous version of Eraser and installed the newest from tthe website. I used the disk free space eraser and had the BIG PROBLEM with Disk Errors. Icons gone, Fonts Gone, Text Missing! I'm doing a system restore now but, I would say, that your problem is not gone! :?:
 
Free Space Erasing

Well, I was able to get back to base line with System Rrestore but I would NOT advise using Eraser for Disk Free Space cleaning no matter what anyone tells you. I love the product and have used it a lot so I'm a big fan with that one caveat. :wink:
 
Re: Free Space Erasing

Colligan said:
Well, I was able to get back to base line with System Rrestore but I would NOT advise using Eraser for Disk Free Space cleaning no matter what anyone tells you. I love the product and have used it a lot so I'm a big fan with that one caveat. :wink:
Click to expand...
Must be something else on your system reacting with Eraser, I used version 5.82 set on 1 pass of Pseudorandom data for a unused space wipe with all three checkboxs checked an no problems.
 
I use Eraser v.5.82 daily to do free-space disk wipes on an XP Pro system with absolutely no problems whatsoever.

Even v.5.81 was fine with the exception of the "First and last 2K" wiping option.

I agree with Carver, it's likely something conflicting with what Eraser's trying to do.

What's your OS, Colligan?

Also, please verify that you do not have a checkmark in the "Enable background (slow) entropy polling" box on the "Edit/Preferences/General" tab. Pete
 
I used eraser (latest release I think) and set it to munch through my free space and then suddenly my computer was telling me there was 0 bytes of free space at all, programs crashed, google search (!) stopped working and fonts (goudy old type, italic) stopped working in open office. Please help! Version 6.8.0 on Vista home premium - many thanks

BG
 
Filling the disk is how Eraser erases free space. You should let Eraser complete its tasks.

The fonts disappearing etc. seem to only affect Windows XP. This is something that can be solved simply by restarting your computer.
 
Hey thanks Joel! I'm using Vista and I didn't let it finish filling the free space before stopping the task, I was also using open office at the time, and when it crashed and kept saying "allocate more space" I was like "where has it gone". I understand that Eraser fills free space to do its thing...but I didn't realise how this would affect open programs. Forgive me for being so totally n00b! It seemed to get stuck or took a very long time, but maybe I was doing something wrong.

It was halfway through the fill free space task when I cancelled it, as I needed to finish a text document in a hurry.

In my panic, I may have also deleted all but the most recent restore point in trying to free up space....:P

To replace Vista (fail!), I have been gradually downloading windows 7 and Ubuntu, was going to wipe my machine using dban, and to a totally fresh install anyway over coming weeks, as it's been a bit buggy.

So my question now is : have I totally ruined my hard drive? How can I tell? I haven't turned off or restarted or anything since this happened.

Also - how do I get the computer to re-recognise "free space" as "free space" once Eraser has overwritten it - especially after I've done what I did above? Have I totally screwed up? If I simply dban the drive, copy my data to a backup and reinstall the OS will the drive be ok?

Sorry for being so dumb!
 
I guess a simple question is : have I corrupted my drive through my silliness or will it all be fine if I simply restart?
 
Yes, but DBANing your drive would be rather heavy-handed. Eraser should clean up after itself if you cancel, but if it did not, you should try to clear the temp files left over by Eraser by the cancellation (see http://bbs.heidi.ie/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=6014.)
 
Hmmm. Thanks again but I cannot find the files generated by the task because I removed the task when I shut down eraser, earlier on. :( Any way for me to poke around and find this file? Which directory would it be in? Many thanks!
 
Joel said:
If you have used the wipe free space option in Eraser and subsequently noticed that your "free space" has dramatically reduced then delete the folder which contains a randomly-named name, containing random filenames (quite a few dozen) with most of them either <1KB or all of a constant size in the root of the drive you just erased unused space. The size of the folder is the space you've lost.
Click to expand...
 
Ok, thanks Joel. Following your advice I went to my C drive and right there was a folder named "CkM'[6_eLNPZlkSUjo" so I opened it and inside were 8 files of 221,184kb, one of 146,876kb, one of 2kb and one of 1kb. I deleted it and emptied recycling bin. Now I got my lost space back. Is it safe to restart now? Thanks so much for your help! :D
 
Ok I have restarted and everything's back to normal - all the fonts are back, and the other problems are gone. Thanks for your patient help Joel! It was a bit scary but I'm glad this forum exists that's for sure!
 
Eraser should clean up after itself if you cancel the process, however. How did you cancel the erase? Did you terminate the Eraser process?
 
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