Task Completed With Errors - Compressed Drive

[Chris4877]

Hi, everyone!

Somewhere on this forum is a topic about sparse files, and the Eraser error "Task completed with errors." I can't find it right now, to give a link, but I did read through it a few weeks ago.

I have been getting this error, too, and, when I looked at the details in the log, I found that it had something to do with "sparse" files.

Now, I'm just a humble user, not a programmer or some other kind of IT professional, so a lot of what is in the topic I mentioned above is incomprehensible to me.

Having said that, I have three points to make:

1. I only noticed the errors after installation of the latest update to Eraser.
2. The drive on which I was performing the erase is compressed NTFS (Win7 Ultimate x64).
3. When I de-compressed the drive, the Eraser errors went away, and when I re-compressed the drive, the errors returned.

I should also add that the files are no longer visible after task completion, which is probably good enough (I hope).

Just my 2 cents' worth, maybe it will help in correcting any bugs associated with this error (if, in fact there are any bugs).

Best regards to all,
Christopher Souter
(Sydney, Australia)

 

[Joel]

Yes, Eraser can't handle compressed drives. This is because the way files are stored when the contents are compressed by NTFS isn't in a form which Eraser can readily erase and guarantee removal.

Like you've mentioned, uncompressing the drive would let Eraser work, but it still might not guarantee permanent removal -- a determined adversary might still be able to retrieve something.

But if you aren't that paranoid, then it should be fine.

 

[jascarrow@gmail.com]

Yes, Eraser can't handle compressed drives. This is because the way files are stored when the contents are compressed by NTFS isn't in a form which Eraser can readily erase and guarantee removal.

Like you've mentioned, uncompressing the drive would let Eraser work, but it still might not guarantee permanent removal -- a determined adversary might still be able to retrieve something.

But if you aren't that paranoid, then it should be fine.

Thanks for this reply Joel. As the initiator of this message indicated, the NTFS compressed file was removed from the directory display after running Eraser against it, despite the 'completed with errors' message. I noticed that the compressed file in question does not appear in the Recycle Bin either after being processed by Eraser. So we should assume that the file has not be deleted in the normal manner, but has been only partially or incompletely 'erased', and so is potentially recoverable in whole or in part. Am I interpreting what you've said correctly?
Will any compressed file Erased 'with errors' get fully erased during the next run of an Eraser of unused disk space, or is this data left somewhere in limbo between used space and unused space?

By uncompressing a file before Erasing it, Eraser shows a normal completion of the task. In a situation like this where there are compressed and uncompressed files in a directory, will Eraser work properly on the uncompressed files, and unused space on the disk?


Thanks, JS