Ran Erasing Program/What happened to disk space?

I ran the program Eraser on my desktop today in preparation for selling it so I can get my laptop, and I had a power outage in the middle of running it. When I booted back up I barely had any space left on my hard drive despite having 70GB free prior to running it. I tried to track down where those files are at and unfree the space, but I have had no such luck. I have followed the instructions and I still can't free up the space. I am fetting desperate since the person is supposed to pick it up tomorrow afternoon, and I have alot to do..

I am not sure how to free up the space other than reinstalling/reformatting windows. I don't want to do that. Any thoughts/ideas?

 

I know you don't want to do it, but you are much better off if you do a reformat/reinstallation of Windows. You don't want to leave any traces of you or your personal information on that comptuer,

 

i 2nd chazman's advice...

i wouldn't have bothered with the eraser program in the 1st place...

just reformat and reinstall. shouldn't take more than an hour-ish.

 

ou could use a scrubber if you want to be more sure the data is gone.

 

The data wiping (=overwriting) procedure is done by creating a large temporary file which takes up virtually all free disk space. If interrupted, simply rerun the program or empty all temp folders or both...

 

My recommendation is to wipe the whole HDD with a boot disk (many wiping utilities have that option to create a boot disk) and THEN reinstall Windows...

I would definitely not leave my Windows installation no matter how clean it is as there are too many unknown variables in the way Windows handles information and files (windows registry, file backups, swap/hibernate file etc)...

I wouldn't either just format the drive and reinstall Windows as it's too easy to recover data that way with data recovery utilities...

 

As previously indicated, I wouldn't just format or re-install windows as this still leaves your data on the drive. I'd use some 3rd party program to wipe the drive multiple times before selling the unit as the data is still there and still recoverable.

I've used Acronis' Drive Cleanser to wipe a hard drive I was sending back.

http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/products/drivecleanser

It has many settings you can choose on how to wipe your drive. You can use DOD standards which wipes it 7 times with randomly generated characters, or even a Russian method which wipes it 32 times. Do this a few of times and I'm sure your data will be gone. Only the FBI/CIA's forensics recovery software might be able to recover the data (maybe).

-Vb-

 

Yeah reformatting is the way to go to remove nearly everything.

 

http://dban.sourceforge.net/

Darik's Boot and Nuke ("DBAN") is a self-contained boot floppy that securely wipes the hard disks of most computers. DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect, which makes it an appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction.

Similar Products

* WhiteCanyon WipeDrive.
* New Technologies M-Sweep.
* Paragon Disk Wiper.
* Eagle Disk Wipe.
* DTI Data Disk Wipe.
* Acronis Drive Cleanser.
* East-Tec Disk Sanitizer.
* LSoft Active@ KillDisk.
* CyberScrub CyberCide.
* Think Disk Cleanser.
* Micro2000 EraserDisk

 

Wait a second - when I format the drive completely, it doesn't get rid of all the data!?

 

no, most of the time, there will still be stuff left over from a windows reinstall with reformat. Which is why it is good to use another tool like eraser to help clear everything out. I have used eraser with no problems before personally.