Necrofile or other... ?

[PitrPaulus]

GoodDay!
I use necrofile (http://www.necrocosm.com/download.html) to free space on my hard-disc. What's Necrofile: "Well, NecroFile takes the partitions you select from a list and it overwrites the clusters with mock data. This will push all deleted programs off of the hard disk and into oblivion where it belongs. It does *not* damage any data that exists on the drive, and this is guaranteed."
This really works simple and I never had any problems of deleting too much or the wrong files.
BUT... everytime I use the program I have some hang-ups, altough I first do the recommended scan-disc and then the defagmentation. (So it takes a lot of time and energy to use this program.)

Does anybody know if there's a similar program that does the same thing?

(I must be a easy as Necrofile(!): just cleaning the free space on your hard disc automatically, just by selecting the right disc-letter (clean C+D+E >> ready)).

Greetings, PitrPaulus

[mouser]

Eraser is a very high quality file wiper that can also wipe free disk space and end-of-file clusters (or whatever the proper term is).

freeware:
http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/default.php

[app103]

There are some defragmenting tools that will not only defragment the hard drive, but wipe the free space that remains too.

I am unaware of the names of any modern defragmenters that do it. I am not that familiar with any defragmenters other than the old Nuts & Bolts for 9x and the one that comes with Windows.

Nuts & Bolts for 9x does do it, but like PitrPaulus said, it does take longer to do things this way.

[f0dder]

Nuts & Bolts had an *extremely* good defragger - probably the "planning step" it did before actual defragmentation did a lot of good for it's quality. I'd like to see something of similar quality for NTFS... PerfectDisk is the best I've found yet, and the rest I've tried (O&O and "that other popular one" are pretty worthless in comparison).

[PitrPaulus]

Thanks for all suggestions. I first start with ERASER.
I just downloaded ERASER and read all the instructions. But before I just push the YES button I´m a bit worried if I will not delete TOO MUCH. I will just free space AND ALSO ´overwrite´ (or something like that) already deleted files.
Now I get a screen (see screenshot) and I get a bit nervous: can you have a look that I can certainly hit the YES-button?
I made the screenprint with the .... Screenshot Captor! (Perfect).
Greetings and thanks so far, Pitr Paulus. 

[mouser]

yeah it does look a bit scary but yep, its only going to erase unused disk space, not your files.
still, never hurts to do a system backup..

[PitrPaulus]

Whoehaa! That's good stuff, ERASER! Yesterday this program run through my system (it took 4-1/2 hrs....) and the computer is totally cleaned up. Without hangups!
Thanks for your help, Mouser. 
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And then, f0dder, I started lookng for 'Nuts & Bolts'. I searched the internet via Google and all I get is .... nuts and ... a lot of bolts.... but never something like a computer program....
Can you pls. advise me where I can find those 'Nuts & Bolts'? (see attachment...).
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And 'PerfectDisk', where can I find that one?
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Greetings from the Netherlands. PitrPaulus. 

[f0dder]

Nuts & Bolts was for Win98 and, afaik, hasn't been updated since... so it's a bit futile searching for it.

PerfectDisk: somewhere around http://www.raxco.com - iirc, there's a trial version.

[PitrPaulus]

Thanks f0dder, I'm gonna have a look and a try. Good Night!
PitrPaulus

[thunder7]

Eraser by far the best tool I ever used

[PitrPaulus]

Hello thunder7 , 
Good to hear it from you also. You know, I had (also) shut-down problems with my Laptop, (Windows XP SP2). And I do regularly scans and defrags and so on.  And even THIS problem is solved after I had scanned and cleaned the system with ERASER. Wauw. Very Good.
Greetings, PitrPaulus!

[mwb1100]

Also sdelete from Sysinternals (http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/SDelete.html) will wipe drive freespace. 

Nothing fancy - just a simple command line util; the source code is also available, in case that's of interest.

[f0dder]

Oh by the way, "that other defrag app that's pretty worthless" would be DisKeeper.