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The only one I really know of it McAfee QuickClean, but it's rather expensive and insists that you buy the entire McAfee Internet Scurity suite, so I'd rather use another one.
Basically, can anyone recommend one, because the McAfee one is the only one I've heard of. I'm not wanting it for the sake of securing my data or securely deleting sensitive information, although I'll probably use it for that too. What I actually want it for is that if you delete files normally through Windows and empty the recycle bin, you don't actually get much disk space back, because the data is actually still there - Windows just "forgets" that it is there and writes over it the next time it needs to use up more disk space. And I'm running out of disk space, so I need to get rid of a this stuff which is still on the drive, but not accessible because it's been "deleted".
Any suggestions please?
Edit: Must be free!
Ta very much!
Basically, can anyone recommend one, because the McAfee one is the only one I've heard of. I'm not wanting it for the sake of securing my data or securely deleting sensitive information, although I'll probably use it for that too. What I actually want it for is that if you delete files normally through Windows and empty the recycle bin, you don't actually get much disk space back, because the data is actually still there - Windows just "forgets" that it is there and writes over it the next time it needs to use up more disk space. And I'm running out of disk space, so I need to get rid of a this stuff which is still on the drive, but not accessible because it's been "deleted".
Any suggestions please?
Edit: Must be free!
Ta very much!
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Twain wrote:
> All these ones which perform passes to randomise the data on the
> drive though - doesn't that take up space?
It's like a filing cabinet. Fill it with blank bits of paper. Now when you want to store anything useful you just remove the blanks and put the useful stuff in it's place. When you want to remove the useful stuff remove it and replace it iwth blanks.
Technically the filing cabinet is always full, but as long as you know how much blank pieces of paper are there you know how much space you have to store useful stuff.
> All these ones which perform passes to randomise the data on the
> drive though - doesn't that take up space?
It's like a filing cabinet. Fill it with blank bits of paper. Now when you want to store anything useful you just remove the blanks and put the useful stuff in it's place. When you want to remove the useful stuff remove it and replace it iwth blanks.
Technically the filing cabinet is always full, but as long as you know how much blank pieces of paper are there you know how much space you have to store useful stuff.
All these ones which perform passes to randomise the data on the drive though - doesn't that take up space?
Yeah, I use it, and definitely reccomend it.
The C stands for "Crap", by the way. :)
The C stands for "Crap", by the way. :)
I use a utility called CCleaner. You can set it to go over deleted stuff 1, 3 or 5 times. It also gets rid of all the temp stuff windows keeps. It can do a scan of the registry etc and get rid of unused entries.
If you use it on a PC that's been in normal use for a while, it can free up 100's of MBs of space.
If you use it on a PC that's been in normal use for a while, it can free up 100's of MBs of space.
Garin wrote:
> Sorry I dont know of anything thats free to use, I use O&O
> Defrag myself.
>
> Forgot to mention earlier though, a
> Secure delete
> utility thats free to use. With that, you can just right
> click on items and tell it to erase them permanently from the HD.
Cheers for that link, I've been looking for something like Eraser for free for ages and it works really well. I particularly like the fact that as well as the standard '1 pass through all unused areas of the disc' you can do over 35 passes overwriting with Gutman's pseudo-random data to make sure that the old data is well and truly mangled.
Of course, nothing beats removing the hard drive and driving a 6-inch nail through it, which I recommend if you ever sell your PC.
> Sorry I dont know of anything thats free to use, I use O&O
> Defrag myself.
>
> Forgot to mention earlier though, a
> Secure delete
> utility thats free to use. With that, you can just right
> click on items and tell it to erase them permanently from the HD.
Cheers for that link, I've been looking for something like Eraser for free for ages and it works really well. I particularly like the fact that as well as the standard '1 pass through all unused areas of the disc' you can do over 35 passes overwriting with Gutman's pseudo-random data to make sure that the old data is well and truly mangled.
Of course, nothing beats removing the hard drive and driving a 6-inch nail through it, which I recommend if you ever sell your PC.
Twain wrote:
> PC World + Cheap = Crap + Crap
:D
truer words were never spoken.
although you missed out "hideously overpriced" ;)
> PC World + Cheap = Crap + Crap
:D
truer words were never spoken.
although you missed out "hideously overpriced" ;)
Even with some of these deletion programs the data isn't always gone for good.
If you read any computer forensics stuff they mention that some data can still be recovered in some cases even after you format the drive and reinstall windows again - although thats not an easy thing to do :0)
I don't know if these ways would give you much more disk space though - perhaps an external hard drive is needed and move all your non program related files onto that?
If you read any computer forensics stuff they mention that some data can still be recovered in some cases even after you format the drive and reinstall windows again - although thats not an easy thing to do :0)
I don't know if these ways would give you much more disk space though - perhaps an external hard drive is needed and move all your non program related files onto that?
AHA! Found the little blighter!
Apparently, that massive chunk of red that I mentioned earlier which refused to defragment was 1 single file.
It was a video from about 1 or 2 years back, when John Parrott played Steve Davis at the Crucible, and when Ding Junghui walked out of a few matches and Ronnie O'Sullivan was playing great but still didn't win.
It's a shame my crappy TV card only saves in AVI format. Blame my brother for that - he bought it for me as a present, and he bought the cheapest one he could get, from PC World. PC World + Cheap = Crap + Crap, hence the TV card only recorded in AVI format.
The one single file was over 16GB.
That's freed up quite a bit! XD
Yeah, and the file seems to have been completely gone too. It's not that Windows "just forgot it was there." I remember where I got that idea from now - I still can't remember the name of the program, but it involved two people driving around in a van trying to show people how to secure their sensitive information. They highlighted how WPA is more secure than WEP but less compatible, and that any WEP key can be cracked if given enough time. It also showed where harddrives end up when they're thrown out, and that even though al sensitive information was deleted before the drive was thrown out, it was still obtainable by anyone who got their hands on the drive, and THAT's when they said that even though data looks deleted, it's only forgotten and is actually still there.
Thanks for all the help anyway guys! I'll learn to defrag more often in future, and clear up my hard drive more often, and such like.
Y'know what all this is in preparation for? It's probably a bit early, because I'm waiting for the service pack, but I intend to upgrade to Vista soon, but without getting rid of XP, just in case.
Apparently, that massive chunk of red that I mentioned earlier which refused to defragment was 1 single file.
It was a video from about 1 or 2 years back, when John Parrott played Steve Davis at the Crucible, and when Ding Junghui walked out of a few matches and Ronnie O'Sullivan was playing great but still didn't win.
It's a shame my crappy TV card only saves in AVI format. Blame my brother for that - he bought it for me as a present, and he bought the cheapest one he could get, from PC World. PC World + Cheap = Crap + Crap, hence the TV card only recorded in AVI format.
The one single file was over 16GB.
That's freed up quite a bit! XD
Yeah, and the file seems to have been completely gone too. It's not that Windows "just forgot it was there." I remember where I got that idea from now - I still can't remember the name of the program, but it involved two people driving around in a van trying to show people how to secure their sensitive information. They highlighted how WPA is more secure than WEP but less compatible, and that any WEP key can be cracked if given enough time. It also showed where harddrives end up when they're thrown out, and that even though al sensitive information was deleted before the drive was thrown out, it was still obtainable by anyone who got their hands on the drive, and THAT's when they said that even though data looks deleted, it's only forgotten and is actually still there.
Thanks for all the help anyway guys! I'll learn to defrag more often in future, and clear up my hard drive more often, and such like.
Y'know what all this is in preparation for? It's probably a bit early, because I'm waiting for the service pack, but I intend to upgrade to Vista soon, but without getting rid of XP, just in case.
Sorry I dont know of anything thats free to use, I use O&O Defrag myself.
Forgot to mention earlier though, a Secure delete utility thats free to use. With that, you can just right click on items and tell it to erase them permanently from the HD.
Forgot to mention earlier though, a Secure delete utility thats free to use. With that, you can just right click on items and tell it to erase them permanently from the HD.
Do you know of any good defragmenters that run at boot then, like, before Windows boots? It seems like that would be the best time to defrag, because more files are made read-only and therefore Windows refuses to defrag them when Windows is actually running.
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