[CYB3R]

Hello again
Recently i came across the undelete function in tuneup utilities and when i scanned it came up with abt 20 000 files that i could restore O.o. Some of these included videos i had deleted weeks ago and i heard somewhere that emptying the recyclign bin doesnt exactly delete my files.

So here are my questions :

Do the files that showed up in the scan frm TuneUp actually take up space ??


Where do i find a decent program that can ensure i get of these files for good and future files that i want deleted completely?

Again .. Any help is appreciated

- CYB3R

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Do the files that showed up in the scan frm TuneUp actually take up space ??

technically yes...and technically no

Physically the files are still on your computer..BUT they aren't counted as used space on the hard drive.

everyone assumes that when they press the delete key, your computer rushes out and wipes that part of your drive to get rid of the file
what REALLY happens when you press the delete key is that your computer "tombstones" the file...basically the way your computer accesses files (and knows how to access the files and where they are) is controlled by pointers...a pointer is a little bit of information that is appended to the file. this pointer is like an address telling the pc where the file is and what it belongs to...when a file is "tombstoned" the pointer is removed...when the PC finds a file without a pointer..it treats it as empty space and overwrites it with the new info

so physically the data is still there (which is how that undelete works..it looks for tombstoned files) but as you use your computer that data will get overwritten...so you don't actually have to worry about the files taking up space

any of that make sense?

[dsenette]

Do the files that showed up in the scan frm TuneUp actually take up space ??

technically yes...and technically no

Physically the files are still on your computer..BUT they aren't counted as used space on the hard drive.

everyone assumes that when they press the delete key, your computer rushes out and wipes that part of your drive to get rid of the file
what REALLY happens when you press the delete key is that your computer "tombstones" the file...basically the way your computer accesses files (and knows how to access the files and where they are) is controlled by pointers...a pointer is a little bit of information that is appended to the file. this pointer is like an address telling the pc where the file is and what it belongs to...when a file is "tombstoned" the pointer is removed...when the PC finds a file without a pointer..it treats it as empty space and overwrites it with the new info

so physically the data is still there (which is how that undelete works..it looks for tombstoned files) but as you use your computer that data will get overwritten...so you don't actually have to worry about the files taking up space

any of that make sense?

[CYB3R]

yea that made a lot of sense !

one more

what program can i use to delete those file ?

[alsocom]

Eraser will do what you want. When you install the program, it will give you the option to add it to the right click of the recycle bin. When you want to permanently remove files from the recycle bin, you can right click and choose Erase Recycle Bin.

You can do an On-Demand scan or a Scheduled scan to overwrite all unused portions of your hard drive with 1's and 0's. This includes overwriting those files that you have already deleted. It can be set for 1, 3, 7, & 35 passes. The more passes it makes the less likely the file will be able to be recovered.

Depending on how large your hard drive is and how information is on it, this can be a lenghty process. On my 120 Gb hard drive which is 50% full, it can take up to 12 hours to erase the Unused disk space.