using Eraser on external hard drive after formatting drive

[jimmy777]

I deleted (normally, no added layers) about 100 gigs on a 1 terra external hard drive. I then formatted the external hard drive. Now I would like to make sure those files are not going to be recovered. I tried with Eraser, did it in 5 seconds, said "done and imcomplete" or smth similar. Guessing it's because there are no visible files on there. Is there a way to avoid 10 days, what my CCleaner says it would take to wipe the whole drive? How can I delete and overpass just the data with Eraser? Many thanks.

 

[sainokawara]

To answer your question, I need to understand exactly what you did. You have a 1 TB drive. Is it a single partition? You then did a "Quick Format", not a "Full Format" of the 1 TB drive or did you repartition the drive? Then, you invoked some Eraser function that completed in 5 seconds. What function and any error message would be needed to diagnose a problem.

If the drive is a single 1 TB partition, an Eraser "Erase Unused Free Space" will overwrite (1-pass of random bits is adequate) all of your deleted files so nothing is recoverable and also destroy the file names which can "leak" information. If, however, the drive was repartitioned, you will need to "Erase Unused Free Space" on every partition including any free space on the drive that is not allocated to any partition. So, make certain that you Erase everything. Also, it will take HOURS to erase a 1 TB drive overwriting with a SINGLE-pass! Make certain that "Erase Cluster tips" is also checked.