XL Delete can lock the free space on any fixed or removable drive. To bring up
the Free Space Lock dialog, choose 'Free Space Lock' from the Tools menu or
from the Tools side bar.
A free space lock is basically a large securely wiped file that will take up space
on your hard drive and prevent any files from being written to that area of the
hard drive. This is useful if you have a very large hard drive with a lot of free
space. You can choose to lock most of your free space to keep Windows from
writing to that area of your hard drive. Whenever you need the free space,
simply delete the lock file and you will have all your free space back. The lock
files will are located in the "XL Delete Locks" folder on the root of the drive whose
free space you lock.
Once you bring up the Free Space Lock dialog, you can choose the drive that
you want to lock free space in from the drive list. You will see a visual
representation of the available free space on the selected drive, blue is the space
available and red is the space being used. Once you choose a drive, and select
the percentage of the free space to lock by using the slider, (NOTE: You can
specify a file size by checking the "Specify" check box and entering the size you
want in the text box), press the 'Lock' button to begin the free space lock. You
can also specify the wipe method to use for wiping the free space from the drop
down menu.
A free space lock can take a very long time depending on the size of the selected
free space to lock on the drive and the wipe method you chose to use.
TIP: Use the "Quick" wipe method to write a simple zero filled lock file.
File Allocation:
If the "Use File Allocation" box is checked, XL Delete will allocate a file the size
of the free space on the selected drive before starting to lock. This is useful for
when trying to lock the free space on the main drive such as the C:\ drive
because it prevents Windows from stopping the lock process if Windows detects
that it is running low on disk space. It will also speed up the lock process.