johny03 said:
Is it safe to wipe the free space of a system drive?
If, by 'safe', you mean that nothing will be deleted that you don't want deleted, the answer is yes.
johny03 said:
Actually not a lot. I suggest that you read the FAQ posts on Getting to know Eraser 6 and Common Eraser Questions. What will happen is that there will be a large number of 'error' messages in the log relating to (mostly system) files whose cluster tips cannot be erased. If those are all the error messages you get, that is not a big issue.
johny03 said:
How long would the process take? (System Disc: 100GB, CPU: 1.3GHz, RAM: 2GB)
It really depends on how much free space there is on the drive. My guess is 2-3 hours, but the time can vary very considerably. I suggest sticking with the default single pass erasing method to minimize the time (which is a function of the amount of space to be erased and the performance of the hard drive more than anything else).
johny03 said:
Is there something else I need do/know before doing it? (Besides disabling my antivirus)
As you clearly wish to be careful, a sensible precaution would be to run a drive check (reboot required) before running a free space erase. Also, in Vista or Windows 7, you will need to run Eraser as Administrator (details in the FAQ). If the computer is a laptop, do the erase while running on mains, not battery, power. And if you also plan to defragment the drive, do it before you run the free space erase.
David