Low level format

[itPro]

I think you're trying too hard to find flaws in it. Ok, you say that there are indexes and a page file, but why would there be on a second drive that's added to the machine? There's nothing to index. Windows uses whatever directory is allocated as a page file. It doesn't just start adding page file space to every hard drive that is added to the system. Perhaps you're confused in thinking that people will only ever be trying to delete their system drive? Do you realize how easy it is to insert a second drive, even if it has Windows installed on it, and delete the entire drive, including indexes and page file space?

Besides, remember that we're talking about making data unrecoverable. The primary reason for trying these solutions is to find out which one is best. I can guarantee you that three passes with Cipher will be better than one pass with any other garbage. lol

As far as indexes go, who really cares if there are indexes pointing to files and folders that no longer exist, even if you were just trying to do this to a system drive? You can also set Windows to not use a page file at all. This would then allow you to overwrite it completely. What's more is that the page file only stores what would be stored in memory, but obviously there was not enough RAM to handle it. I suppose you could have a sensitive file stored there, but then we can still wipe it out if we turn off page file.

The awesome part is that you don't have to reboot in order to take care of it. You can multi-task, rather than just sitting and waiting for a silly third-party app to get finished hogging your entire machine.