Progam Stops if no Paging file

R

RichardRegal

New Member
Vista Home premium 32bit Intel Quad core processor

I have turned off memory paging and so have no paging file. When I use Guttman wiping to overwrite files the progam gets about half way thorugh the data and then stops. Ptessing the stop button does not cause the program to terminate, I have to use task manager to terminate the program. If I turn on paging the program works OK. The problem is repeatable.
 
Thank you for your bug report.

I don’t have Vista so could you test to see if this bug still exists when using different wiping patterns please ?
 
I tried it with 1 pass pseudorandom data.

At first I thought that it exhibited the same problem, then I realized that what was happening was that it would get so far (72%) and then seem to stop. After a while it would jump to 90% and then seem to stop. After a very long while it reached 93% and then after an even longer while it finished.

It failed to erase 3 files, and the report is below

---------------------
Information:
Statistics:
Erased area = 55388 kB
Cluster tips = 77 kB
Data written = 55388 kB
Write time = 843.62 s
Write speed = 66 kB/s
Failures:
Failed: C:\$Recycle.Bin\S-1-5-21-3188654606-3824905005-333070543-1000\$RDLM1OX.exe
Failed: C:\$Recycle.Bin\S-1-5-21-3188654606-3824905005-333070543-1000\$RHSPP74.exe
Failed: C:\$Recycle.Bin\S-1-5-21-3188654606-3824905005-333070543-1000\$RZVHTWF.exe
-----------------------

So what I suspect is happening is not that 35 pass actually stops, but rather that the pauses are so long that the program seems to stop.

As I said, if Iturn on the page file this does not happen.

I have 4Gb of RAM and the only program running at the time was eraser. There is plenty of space on the disc.
 
Thank you for testing for me.

I wonder if the long pauses are while windows is flushing the RAM back to the drive. Those 3 files that were not erased may be for some other reason, I get that issue occasionally.

Could you erase your recycle bin and try again please, with the single pass free-space wipe. Actually thinking about it could you disable the cluster tips wipe this time.

Thanks.
 
Hi

Just another thought,

Could you shut down all other programs when you wipe your free-space especially any antivirus etc.
 
What do you mean by “Single pass free space wipe”? I have a choice of 1 pass Pseudo random and 1 pass first-last 2k and one pass library
 
The last time I tried one pass it was Pseudorandom too. Disabling the cluster tips write seems to have fixed the problem. So much so that I tried it 35 pass and it worked a treat. What am I losing by disabling the cluster tips write?
 
Cluster tip wipes clean the area after a file if it doesn’t completely fill a sector. I don’t think you are loosing a lot of security but you are loosing a little.

Just a thought why don’t you enable your page file, wipe your free space including cluster tips then disable your page file ? I don’t think windows will write to a cluster tip in normal usage so once you have wiped it you have wiped it ! Someone may correct me here but I think that will be sufficient for you.

I suggest you carry on as you are for now and wait for the release of V6. To be honest using the 35 pass is overkill and probably isn’t doing anymore for your security than a single pass if you are using a reasonably modern hard drive.

If you are very security conscious then I suggest you look at Truecrypt a free drive encryption program. You can encrypt your entire drive so whatever is in the free space really doesn’t matter ! It also can make a secure wipe before encrypting without loosing your data.
 
> why don’t you enable your page file, wipe your free space including cluster tips
> then disable your page file ?

Because enabling the page file requires a reboot and disabling it does too.

Thanks for the comments though. I think I will wait for v6.
 
RichardRegal said:
Because enabling the page file requires a reboot and disabling it does too.
Click to expand...

Oh ok, however I would have thought that a small price to pay for security. You seem to have a high spec machine so I assumed booting up wouldn’t take too long.

You could always have a page file and encrypt it with cryptoswap-gorilla (free software). Once installed you can forget about it and it just does its thing. Although I am unsure if it works with Vista.
 
I run my Desktop without a page file either, and im using Vista Ultimate. Are you using 64-bit Windows?

Joel
 
Joel said:
Are you using 64-bit Windows?
Click to expand...

RichardRegal said:
Vista Home premium 32bit
Click to expand...

I do seem to remember this was a problem on more than one occasion. Users having trouble when cluster tips was selected with no page file. I wonder if you have more RAM Joel and that’s why it works ok for you ?
 
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