[v6] Why do I have reduced Free Space After Using Eraser?

Re: [v6] Why do I have reduced Free Space After Using Eraser

Okay, so I have experienced the problems described here and am familiar with deleting the randomly named folders etc in that case. However, I have a situation now where after running Eraser, I lost all my free space AND THOSE FOLDERS DO NOT EXIST. I have approximately 15GB in files on my disk, but chkdsk reports 37GB used. I've read no solution for this issue.

I was using Eraser 6.06
 
Re: [v6] Why do I have reduced Free Space After Using Eraser

cga1974 said:
Okay, so I have experienced the problems described here and am familiar with deleting the randomly named folders etc in that case. However, I have a situation now where after running Eraser, I lost all my free space AND THOSE FOLDERS DO NOT EXIST. I have approximately 15GB in files on my disk, but chkdsk reports 37GB used. I've read no solution for this issue.

I was using Eraser 6.06
Click to expand...

Correcting errors in the master file table's (MFT) BITMAP attribute.
CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the volume bitmap.
Windows found problems with the file system.
Run CHKDSK with the /F (fix) option to correct these.

39070048 KB total disk space.
31535752 KB in 91189 files.
27832 KB in 5227 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
203884 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
7302580 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
9767512 total allocation units on disk.
1825645 allocation units available on disk.

However, chkdsk /f will not repair the problem.
 
Re: [v6] Why do I have reduced Free Space After Using Eraser

How are you determining that you have 15GB of files on your computer? Selecting all files in the root of your drive and selecting properties is not accurate (most notably, the size and file count of the Windows folder will be underreported.) According to chkdsk, you should have 7+GB free at the moment.

Alternatively, you may like to clear all System Restore checkpoints. That sometimes balloons after a free space erase (though it's more commonly observed to shrink).
 
Re: [v6] Why do I have reduced Free Space After Using Eraser

Well, how about that I had 15GB full before I ran Eraser? Eraser caused this problem. I'm not gonna bitch since it was free, but I sure wish I hadn't used it now.
 
Re: [v6] Why do I have reduced Free Space After Using Eraser

You can try to use a disk space analyser to see where the space has gone to. please report the findings, if any. if your disk had errors before, check that no lost files were recovered and if so check the space they consume.
 
Re: [v6] Why do I have reduced Free Space After Using Eraser

Had the same problem - tiny free space left - but deleting the rubbish files as suggested in Joel's post of Fri Feb 05, 2010 3:37 am worked just fine. Thanks, Joel. Amazing project!
 
Re: [v6] Why do I have reduced Free Space After Using Eraser

Same problem here. For me eraser seems to have eaten about 50 of my 150 gb drive. I uninstalled eraser before finding this FAQ so I can't look at any logs unfortunatly and there are no randomly generated files in C: that I can see.
This is a Windows7 machine if that matters.

Do the files have som special suffix that I can search for or anything else that can help med find them? Right now I'm down to 200mb, which is bad.
 
Re: [v6] Why do I have reduced Free Space After Using Eraser

Please post queries like this in the support forum; there's a better chance we'll see them there.

The files, and the folder(s) in which they reside are randomly named, and don't have an extension. They are recognisable precisely because the names are complete gobbledygook; almost everything else has some sort of structure, however arcane. Typically you should find a single randomly named folder in the root of the drive in question, and this will contain the files, similarly named. Delete all this, and you will have your space back.

David
 
Re: [v6] Why do I have reduced Free Space After Using Eraser

First time poster to this forum after discovering Eraser from DBAN.

Comment to the developers, to whom I am extremely grateful for this utility:

Regarding the use of a randomly-named folder and files used to "wipe" the free space. To the average, non-geek user who wants to do the right thing and remove sensitive data from free space, I believe it is a bit much to ask them to look for a folder named with random characters in the root directory. What if there is a seemingly randomly-named folder that has important information that should not be deleted? I have seen this before, although not in root folders. Also, some average, non-geek users probably won't know what the root folder is, so it might be helpful to explain that as well.

My suggested improvement to the randomly-named folder:
1) Allow the user to name the folder to be created
2) Whether or not you implement 1), show the folder name to the user from beginning to end.
 
Re: [v6] Why do I have reduced Free Space After Using Eraser

It is already possible to use the 'plausible deniability' feature of Eraser to specify a particular folder/file set (i.e. copies of existing files) in place of the randomly generated names that Eraser uses by default.

In my experience, the Eraser folder and file names stick out like a sore thumb, precisely because they are so random (=meaningless). Even the more arcane components of the OS, such as the (in)famous WinSXS folder, have names that are significantly easier to interpret. And if there is any doubt, one look at the folder creation date should settle the uncertainty.

That said, Joel knows that more work is needed on the Eraser documentation, and there needs to be a reference topic on this subject. Even so, though the problem has perhaps not gone away, I do believe (from the reduction in the number of forum posts on the subject) that its incidence - and therefore the need to delete files manually - has significantly reduced since Version 6.0.8 was released. That has certainly been my own experience with the more recent 6.0 and 6.1 builds.

David
 
Re: [v6] Why do I have reduced Free Space After Using Eraser

This program regularly crashes my computer when running, and while there is lots of information in this thread on how to delete and remove this folder (which has never been a problem for me) there doesn't seem to be anything on what you can do to correct it, so that you don't have to delete this random folder yourself. I never had these problems when I ran windows XP, but now I have 7 which required me to upgrade to a newer version of eraser, which is currently the most recent.
 
Re: [v6] Why do I have reduced Free Space After Using Eraser

Please see the FAQ post entitled 'Common Eraser Questions'. If that doesn't provide an answer as to why the crashes are occurring, please post a further query in the Support forum, giving as much detail as possible on how and when the crash occurs, what the Eraser log says (you can look at it during the run, and it may disappear when the program crashes), and what error messages you get.

If you are getting the crashes when you are trying to erase free space on Drive C:, try unticking the option to erase cluster tips. That has worked for me.

The problem here is that most issues with Eraser 6 are now installation-specific. I am running Eraser 6 on 2 Windows 7 x64 machines without significant problems. The tiny development team (of which I am not part) cannot hope to test every possible configuration, so the best we can hope to do is identify reproducible problems and get the team to deal with those.

David
 
I am in the process of running eraser and it is also slowing and has used up all but 2gb I saw where you said complete the process if possible but it has slowed to mere fractions of its prior speed. Can I delete the files in the root folder before the process has finished to speed it back up again?
 
Re: [v6] Why do I have reduced Free Space After Using Eraser

That will probably not work, I'm afraid. The slowdown is a function of Windows being reluctant to allow the drive to fill completely.

David
 
Re: [v6] Why do I have reduced Free Space After Using Eraser

Deleting the files in the root folder will only serve to confuse Eraser, and cause the erase to restart from the beginning (if Eraser doesn't crash in the first place...)
 
Re: [v6] Why do I have reduced Free Space After Using Eraser

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE GIVE ME A SIMPLE ANSWER ON HOW TO FIND THE F*@#KING FOLDER??!!

padon my language but im on the ede of loosing my mind!!! :x
 
Re: [v6] Why do I have reduced Free Space After Using Eraser

Find the folder with the most unreadable name in the root file of your target drive, which will also have a creation date/time of when you were erasing, and will contain only files with equally unreadable names, most or all of which will be of the same size. Just in case, make sure that the option to view hidden filed and folders is set in your folder options.

Is that clear enough? No further asterisks are necessary - just leave them in the unreadable file name!

David
 
Re: [v6] Why do I have reduced Free Space After Using Eraser

Dear Sir or Madam,

I have read all three pages of this post and I don't believe I found an answer to my problem. Windows issues a notice of low disk space and eraser crashes before it completes the erasing / wiping of unused disk space.

If eraser is writing to all the unused space how does making a ballast solve the problem of low disk space?

I'm using eraser version 5.7 with Windows Me

Your assistance is greatly appreciated.

Danny
 
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