I downloaded a program 2 months ago for purging the master file table. I read somewehere (but not from an expert) that it mess the hard drive and system, is it true? i have not encounter any corruption problem. I use it to delete entries or names of sensitive data.
I'm wondering if it was Ccleaner? The reason is that I just ran it yesterday, and for the first time selected for it to wipe free space. As it neared completion, a warning dialog appeared, saying that my C: drive was 96% full. I opened O&O defragger, and it showed the drive covered with red fragmented blocks. When I closed Ccleaner and had O&O analyze the drive again, all of those extra red blocks had disappeared. I'm guessing that the program was locking those blocks until completion, but that is just a guess.
From what I read of it, you are only doing what any secure file eraser would do, that is, wiping out the filename from the directory. Normally, for security purposes, erasing the file contents is not enough, as you might want to remove the name of the file from the directory, which could otherwise be recovered by prying eyes. If you had wiped the names of non-deleted files, you would have nothing left. You only deleted the names of the files whose content you erased. You know what I mean?
I have used Ccleaner too, but it seems it just wipe empty space. Directory Snoop remove the entries from the MFT so new data can be written. No problem with Ccleaner or Snoop for me, yet.
It is normal to say that is almost full, but it will normalize after finished.
Soho, so risky par of purging is if non deleted files are purged from mft? that was not explained where i read it before, thanks then.
Someone enlighten me please. I understand that a file remains, even after deletion, but I would have thought that the file's name would have been deleted from the MFT. If not, then I would have thought that it would be deleted after the file had been wiped. If neither of these are true, then how does having the name in the MFT impair performance in any fashion?
If you delete the name of a give file, Windows will not find it on the disk, even if it's there because there's nothing pointing to it.
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