Looking for Free Slack Space Wiping Util

I'm looking for a free disk wiping utility. Basically, I'm selling a
few computers and I just want to delete certain data files and wipe
the slack space on the rest of the drive before selling them. Any
suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Zilbandy

ERASER: www.heidi.ie/eraser/

Zilbandy wrote:
> I'm looking for a free disk wiping utility. Basically, I'm selling a
> few computers and I just want to delete certain data files and wipe
> the slack space on the rest of the drive before selling them. Any
> suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Andrew Wood

Zilbandy wrote:
> I'm looking for a free disk wiping utility. Basically, I'm selling a
> few computers and I just want to delete certain data files and wipe
> the slack space on the rest of the drive before selling them. Any
> suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/

Free & released under the GNU GPL

Kevin Reiter

On Sat, 11 Jun 2005 15:37:08 -0400, Kevin Reiter
<> wrote:

>Zilbandy wrote:
>> I'm looking for a free disk wiping utility. Basically, I'm selling a
>> few computers and I just want to delete certain data files and wipe
>> the slack space on the rest of the drive before selling them. Any
>> suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
>
>http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/
>
>Free & released under the GNU GPL

Yeah....works well
Excellent IMHO

PRoToCoL

Interesting program - however, it doesn't appear to erase slack space
AFAICT - does handle free space; however, that's not normally considered to
be the same as slack space.

--
Regards, Jim Byrd, MS-MVP
My, Blog Defending Your Machine, here:
http://defendingyourmachine.blogspot.com/

"Kevin Reiter" <> wrote in message
news:G3Hqe.393$
> Zilbandy wrote:
>> I'm looking for a free disk wiping utility. Basically, I'm selling a
>> few computers and I just want to delete certain data files and wipe
>> the slack space on the rest of the drive before selling them. Any
>> suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
>
> http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/
>
> Free & released under the GNU GPL

Jim Byrd

On Sat, 11 Jun 2005 14:05:19 -0700, "Jim Byrd"
<> wrote:

>Interesting program - however, it doesn't appear to erase slack space

The old DOS version I've used did and its too important a feature to
have been dropped methinks.
--
Jim Watt
http://www.gibnet.com

Jim Watt

From the help file for version 5.7 of Eraser:

It is relatively rare for the size of a file to be divisible by the
partition cluster size, i.e., for the file to use completely all clusters it
has allocated. Therefore, usually only a part of the last allocated cluster
is used and the unused part of the last cluster (the cluster tip, or slack
space) contains old and possibly secret data, which cannot be overwritten
before the file that allocated the cluster has been removed.

This problem is not only present when overwriting single files, but it also
opens a potential security problem when overwriting unused disk space. If
one overwrites only the free space available on a drive, the cluster tip
area still remains untouched - this is why Eraser overwrites also cluster
tips when overwriting unused disk space or single files.

Also, if you check the options dialog box you will also see a check box for
Alternate Data Streams.

Have a nice day,
Harvey Lange

"Jim Byrd" <> wrote in message
news:h5CdnXZVP66PzzbfRVn-...
> Interesting program - however, it doesn't appear to erase slack space
> AFAICT - does handle free space; however, that's not normally considered
> to
> be the same as slack space.
>
> --
> Regards, Jim Byrd, MS-MVP
> My, Blog Defending Your Machine, here:
> http://defendingyourmachine.blogspot.com/
>
> "Kevin Reiter" <> wrote in message
> news:G3Hqe.393$
>> Zilbandy wrote:
>>> I'm looking for a free disk wiping utility. Basically, I'm selling a
>>> few computers and I just want to delete certain data files and wipe
>>> the slack space on the rest of the drive before selling them. Any
>>> suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
>>
>> http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/
>>
>> Free & released under the GNU GPL
>
>

Thanks to all that replied. It looks like eraser is just what I
wanted. I didn't realize it was going to take so long to 'erase' a
drive, though. LOL Oh, it appears that it does wipe slack space if
you want it too. This is great.

Zilbandy <> wrote:

>I'm looking for a free disk wiping utility. Basically, I'm selling a
>few computers and I just want to delete certain data files and wipe
>the slack space on the rest of the drive before selling them. Any
>suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Zilbandy

Thanks Harvey.

--
Regards, Jim Byrd, MS-MVP
My, Blog Defending Your Machine, here:
http://defendingyourmachine.blogspot.com/

<> wrote in message
news:74Kqe.80403$
> From the help file for version 5.7 of Eraser:
>
> It is relatively rare for the size of a file to be divisible by the
> partition cluster size, i.e., for the file to use completely all
> clusters it has allocated. Therefore, usually only a part of the last
> allocated cluster is used and the unused part of the last cluster
> (the cluster tip, or slack space) contains old and possibly secret
> data, which cannot be overwritten before the file that allocated the
> cluster has been removed.
>
> This problem is not only present when overwriting single files, but
> it also opens a potential security problem when overwriting unused
> disk space. If one overwrites only the free space available on a
> drive, the cluster tip area still remains untouched - this is why
> Eraser overwrites also cluster tips when overwriting unused disk
> space or single files.
>
> Also, if you check the options dialog box you will also see a check
> box for Alternate Data Streams.
>
> Have a nice day,
> Harvey Lange
>
> "Jim Byrd" <> wrote in message
> news:h5CdnXZVP66PzzbfRVn-...
>> Interesting program - however, it doesn't appear to erase slack space
>> AFAICT - does handle free space; however, that's not normally
>> considered to
>> be the same as slack space.
>>
>> --
>> Regards, Jim Byrd, MS-MVP
>> My, Blog Defending Your Machine, here:
>> http://defendingyourmachine.blogspot.com/
>>
>> "Kevin Reiter" <> wrote in message
>> news:G3Hqe.393$
>>> Zilbandy wrote:
>>>> I'm looking for a free disk wiping utility. Basically, I'm selling
>>>> a few computers and I just want to delete certain data files and
>>>> wipe the slack space on the rest of the drive before selling them.
>>>> Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
>>>
>>> http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/
>>>
>>> Free & released under the GNU GPL

Jim Byrd