UltraWipe free space wiping issue---shows 24 gig when there is 34 gig avail.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Thomas G. Marshall
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Thomas G. Marshall

I've noticed something about the free space wiping.

I have 34 gig of free space, yet UW shows that I have only 24 gig when I run
it to shred free space.

Why?
 
Thomas G. Marshall coughed up:
I've noticed something about the free space wiping.

I have 34 gig of free space, yet UW shows that I have only 24 gig
when I run it to shred free space.

Why?
Click to expand...


Strike that. It's showing 2.7 gig. Huh? Am I misreading the information
somehow?
 
If you are using the NTFS file system, I would say it was because there
is a certain amount of free space that the system must reserve for the
Master File Table (MFT). This space is actually free, but must be kept
in reserve for when it's needed. Some programs may report it as free or
not, I suppose.

With questions like this, it is important to state what your operating
system is, and the file system you're using.

Most free space erasing programs create a series of very large files on
the partition, then delete them afterwards. Possibly the files are not
being deleted properly, consuming large amounts of your free space.
These temporary files could be in your root folder, or in the
application's folder. They may end in .tmp, or something like that.
 
Donnie Russell said:
If you are using the NTFS file system, I would say it was because there
is a certain amount of free space that the system must reserve for the
Master File Table (MFT). This space is actually free, but must be kept
in reserve for when it's needed. Some programs may report it as free or
not, I suppose.

With questions like this, it is important to state what your operating
system is, and the file system you're using.

Most free space erasing programs create a series of very large files on
the partition, then delete them afterwards. Possibly the files are not
being deleted properly, consuming large amounts of your free space.
These temporary files could be in your root folder, or in the
application's folder. They may end in .tmp, or something like that.
Click to expand...


XP pro, so yes, it's NTFS.

No, it's not that it is consuming space /after/ it runs. /During/ its run
it is claiming far less space than there is available. It's claiming 2.7
gig. Perhaps I should let it run to see if it continues on from there----I
always abort it since I am concerned that it was goofing something up.
 
From what you've said, I would conclude the program is making some kind
of error in calculating your free space. If your partitions/drives are
large enough, the values can overflow 32-bit registers. To make sure,
run the program, then monitor the free space from some other reliable
program, like Explorer. Look at your page file and see if it grows as
the program starts; it might be allocating large amounts of memory to
clear the page file (I guess that's possible).

Before doing any of that, though, run "chkdsk" on all your
partitions/drives.
 
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