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shred file name


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#1 OFFLINE   jan01

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Posted 26 March 2007 - 06:02 AM

Hi, I'm a newbie...
Just ran Recuva and saw all the files I've once deleted.
Is it possible to shred the file names?
My reports are shredded now, but not the filenames

Has somebody a suggestion for this problem?

Sorry for the poor English....

Jan

#2 OFFLINE   Buzzzzzby

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Posted 28 March 2007 - 12:19 PM

You could use Eraser on "Erase Unused Space" for individual drives or partitions, which will overwrite any deleted files (you set the number and type of overwrites) and also will reset their file names to a long string of 0's.

There is another free space eraser called SDelete from SysInternals which is run from the command line.

Drop a copy of the downloaded Sdelete.exe into your Windows folder.
Go to Start > Run > Type 'CMD' (this will bring up a black Command Line window)
Type: Sdelete -p 1 -z C: and press Enter (Example: If you want 1 pass of Drive C:)
The application will start to run.

This sort of program is also useful if for example you want to sell or donate your old computer but still with a working Operating System (assuming you didn't want to give away your Windows CD). You would delete all your files, EMPTY THE RECYCLE BIN, and run a free space erase with however many passes you want. This should make any file recovery operation very hard to achieve, yet your Operating System still functions ok.
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#3 OFFLINE   jan01

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Posted 29 March 2007 - 05:37 AM

Hai Buzzzzzby,

Thanks for your advise and explanation, I will try both programs and let you know!

Jan


View PostBuzzzzzby, on Mar 28 2007, 01:19 PM, said:

You could use Eraser on "Erase Unused Space" for individual drives or partitions, which will overwrite any deleted files (you set the number and type of overwrites) and also will reset their file names to a long string of 0's.

There is another free space eraser called SDelete from SysInternals which is run from the command line.

Drop a copy of the downloaded Sdelete.exe into your Windows folder.
Go to Start > Run > Type 'CMD' (this will bring up a black Command Line window)
Type: Sdelete -p 1 -z C: and press Enter (Example: If you want 1 pass of Drive C:)
The application will start to run.

This sort of program is also useful if for example you want to sell or donate your old computer but still with a working Operating System (assuming you didn't want to give away your Windows CD). You would delete all your files, EMPTY THE RECYCLE BIN, and run a free space erase with however many passes you want. This should make any file recovery operation very hard to achieve, yet your Operating System still functions ok.


#4 OFFLINE   login123

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Posted 30 March 2007 - 01:52 AM

Hi jan01, welcome. :D

I have used sdelete, it's fairly fast. It renames individual files when it deletes them to strings of Z's.
The SLIM version is always released a bit after any new version; when it is it will be HERE :-)

#5 OFFLINE   Sputnik

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Posted 30 March 2007 - 02:37 PM

The latest version of SDelete (v1.51) can be found here :)
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#6 OFFLINE   Pfipps

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Posted 06 August 2008 - 09:13 PM

Why doesn't recuva just include a file name erasure method?

#7 OFFLINE   Augeas

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Posted 07 August 2008 - 11:52 AM

Because the technical difficulties in achieving this directly are, I imagine, immense and fraught with danger, which is why applications such as Sdelete don't try.

To access the MFT, locate the records flagged as deleted, rename them, and maintain the index structure, all the time dodging any legitimate new file name creation, whilst maintaining the MFT mirror in sync, and guaranteeing that the operation is future-proof, sounds like suicide to me.

From what I can glean programs which do 'erase' MFT file names do so by bludgeoning the disk to death as part of free space cleaning (er, overwriting - nothing 'cleans' disk space). They allocate sufficient large enough files to completely fill the disk, using all the free space. These files will encroach on the MFT zone and the MFT will be unable to expand. Then a succession of small files is allocated, with zero or some bland filename. These files will fit entirely into the MFT records. Eventually the entire MFT is full and all the files are deleted, leaving a great many deleted but safe file names.

Where does Recuva fit in? It doesn't. Recuva is a file recovery program, not a disk scrubber, and should remain so.

PS You can of course get rid of all those annoying deleted file names yourself. Just knock up some method of allocating a thousand small files with some incrementing file name. If you have 5000 deleted files then allocate five times, and overwrite the embarrassing residue of your activities in the MFT. Oh yes, don't forget to delete them afterwards.

#8 OFFLINE   MarkAardvark

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Posted 15 August 2008 - 12:32 AM

Personally, I found that Sdelete did not work on files that were erased and in the NTFS MFT. Only Eraser worked when erasing free space.....

http://sourceforge.n...?group_id=37015

fwiw....