"Eraser" new release

For those of you who use it, or are interested, there is a new (15 December 2009) stable release that works with recent versions of Windows.

Basically it provides secure deletion of files and folders, whole disks etc. It also has a "secure move" feature.

It will also wipe "free space" including alternate data streams and cluster tips ;)

http://eraser.heidi.ie/download.php

It is true "freeware", and the source code is available under the GNU Public License"

I have used it for a number of years (since Win 98 actually :eek:) and can personally recommend it. I know of no publicly available commercial product that is better.

Thanks Nihil - good post :)

This seems like a really nice tool. :) Do you have indication on how well it does the job? This can be really usefull for my unencrypted drive.

Hi there xqus,

Eraser has three basic functions:

1. Wipe a whole drive

To do this you create a bootable medium (floppy, CD, DVD etc.) You boot from this and overwrite the whole drive. It actually uses "Darick's Boot n' Nuke" to do this.

2. Wipe selected files and folders

When it does this, it renames the file to something meaningless with the date 1601 (don't ask; I haven't the faintest idea :D) It also overwrites the cluster tips. You can see that there was a file/folder there but you don't know what it was, and you cannot recover anything other than the overwriting data.

3. Wipe freespace

This overwrites freespace, cluster tips and ADS.

CAVEATS:

1. It will not overwrite valid temporary files. I use CCleaner for this and you can specify multiple pass overwriting in its advanced settings.

2. It will not overwrite the page/swap file. You need to make the appropriate entry in the Registry for your operating system and it will overwrite the pagefile on shutdown.

3. It will not overwrite backup files, even if you wipe the parent. You have to select backups manually as well.


I do not know of any product that will wipe clusters/sectors that are marked as damaged, although they just might contain sensitive data? On the other hand I don't think that finding and reading damaged clusters is within most people's skillset.

I have conducted numerous tests over the past few years using a variety of data recovery tools and have never managed to recover any of the data that I have wiped;)

Hope that helps.:)

Thank you nihil!

That was most helpfull. :)

Hi xqus,

You are very welcome.

If there is anything specific you would like me to test for you just let me know. :)

EDIT:

I did a bit of research:

Quote:

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January 1, 1601, is used as the base of file dates[1] by Microsoft Windows.
January 1, 1601, is used as the base of Active Directory Logon dates[2] by Microsoft Windows.
ANSI dates are counted from 1601-01-01 and were adopted by the American National Standards Institute for use with COBOL and other computer languages. This epoch is the beginning of the last 400-year cycle by which leap-years are calculated in the Gregorian calendar. The last year of this cycle is the only one divisible by 100 that is a leap-year, which was the year 2000, and which was followed by a new 400-year cycle beginning with 2001. 32-bit versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system count units of one hundred nanoseconds from this epoch. http://www.decimaltime.hynes.net/dates.html

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So that probably explains the 1601 date?

:D

Quote:

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So that probably explains the 1601 date?

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Most likely.... the actual date of a file is the 'base date' plus a numeric value - the 1601 date implies the numeric value is removed, and so the information displayed is the 'base date'.

Base date = 0 (numeric value)

So, on a file with the date of January 1, 1601 has a date value of 0.
January 2, 1601 has a date value of 1
January 3, 1601 has a date value of 10
January 4, 1601 has a date value of 11 and so on....

Correct me anyone :)


CTO

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nihil

Hi xqus,
If there is anything specific you would like me to test for you just let me know. :)

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I think I'm actually going to test it a bit myself, thanks. I have a couple of harddrives that I'm going to throw away. So I think I'll just try Eraser, and see if I'm able to recover anything when I'm done.

Thanks! :)