Thread: CCleaner

Ok as you know by title I need help with CCleaner.. I know how to run it but there is one thing that I really don't know for sure what it is.. I need a little help on what it exactly does and if I can run it.

Drive Wiper
Securely erase the contents or free space on a drive. (Yes I know it says but im not much a computer person so I would like to know what EXACTLY it will do before I do it and if its something I would want to do.)

Wipe: Free Space Only and/or Entire Drive (all data will be erased)

Security: Simple Overwrite (1 pass) / DOD 5220.22-M (3 passes) / NSA (7 passes) / Gutmann (35 passes).

Drives: Local Disk (C: ) / Removable Disk (E: )

Only if you need to erase something securely/wipe the drive very securely. Completely unnecessary in the course of normal computing, unless you do work on the same machine and that work is very sensitive AND there's a risk of someone taking the computer and/or the data. If none of those things apply, it's not necessary.

Usually operating systems "erase" something by removing the reference to the data in what is effectively the "table of contents" of the hard drive. The data itself is still there, but the area where it is on the drive has been marked as open for rewriting. A skilled data recovery technician, or a hacker, could technically recover the data. Overwriting tools actually reset the area where the data resides back to zero, or use random data, to physically change the area's bits and erase the data itself.

Also, when data is overwritten on a magnetic HDD, traces of the old magnetic field linger in the bits, effectively creating a "ghost" of the data that previously occupied that space (far too weak to be detected by the normal read head of the HDD). A VERY skilled data recovery technician with a LOT of VERY special tools could recover parts of data using that ghost image. For this reason, overwriting tools also allow multiple rewriting methods to destroy the ghost image as well as the data itself.

Draco

Originally Posted by draco7891

Only if you need to erase something securely/wipe the drive very securely. Completely unnecessary in the course of normal computing, unless you do work on the same machine and that work is very sensitive AND there's a risk of someone taking the computer and/or the data. If none of those things apply, it's not necessary.

Usually operating systems "erase" something by removing the reference to the data in what is effectively the "table of contents" of the hard drive. The data itself is still there, but the area where it is on the drive has been marked as open for rewriting. A skilled data recovery technician, or a hacker, could technically recover the data. Overwriting tools actually reset the area where the data resides back to zero, or use random data, to physically change the area's bits and erase the data itself.

Also, when data is overwritten on a magnetic HDD, traces of the old magnetic field linger in the bits, effectively creating a "ghost" of the data that previously occupied that space (far too weak to be detected by the normal read head of the HDD). A VERY skilled data recovery technician with a LOT of VERY special tools could recover parts of data using that ghost image. For this reason, overwriting tools also allow multiple rewriting methods to destroy the ghost image as well as the data itself.

Draco

Very helpful post Draco thank you very much sir.