wipe free space issue

[esoteric17]

Hello,

 

I ran ccleaner with wipe free space.  Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit.  5+ hours later, single pass, <500GB,, the time is still increasing.  I canceled it, but my HDD shows hardly any free space left.  Ran TreeSizeFree & there was a huge amount of data in system volume information.  Had to delete all restore points to reclaim free space.

 

1.  Why did the program continue to show an increasing time for wiping the free space, even after 5+ hours?

 

2.  Why did cancelling the "wipe free space" operation not immediately reclaim space?  Why did I have to delete all of my restore points?

[Koffeequp]

I want to know the answer to this question also.  This same problem happened to me too.  Wiping free space, one pass, same HD size,  using Windows 7 Professional.  Time kept increasing - cancelled after 10 hours.  Should have close to 180 GB free space, only showing 50 GB as free.  

 

I just didn't know how to reclaim my free space - will try deleting my restore points. Thanks esoteric17.

[Andavari]

I just didn't know how to reclaim my free space - will try deleting my restore points.

 

Stopping Wipe Free Space before it ends can cause it to leave a huge file on the hard disk, using TreeSizeFree like esoteric17 did can help you find that disk space consuming file so it can be manually deleted.

 

Personally when I use Wipe Free Space I temporarily disable System Restore in Services.

 

Edit:

The reason why the Restore Points were deleted can be read here.

Edited February 15, 2015 by Andavari