XL Delete can wipe all the free space on any fixed or removable drive. To bring
up the Free Space Wipe dialog, choose 'Free Space Wipe' from the Tools menu
or from the Tools side bar.
Please close any programs that are running before using the free space
wipe. Active programs running at the same time as the free space space
wipe can compromise the security of the wipe and may even cause it to fail.
Once you bring up the Free Space Wipe dialog, you can choose the drive that
you want to wipe from the drive list. You will see a visual representation of the
available free space on the selected drive, blue is the space available for wiping
and red is the space being used. Once you choose a drive, press the 'Wipe'
button to begin the free space wipe. You can also specify the wipe method to
use for wiping the free space from the drop down menu.
A free space wipe can take a very long time depending on the size of the free
space on the drive and the wipe method you chose to use. It is recommended
that you not use your computer while the wipe is in progress. For best results,
defrag your hard drive after a free space wipe.
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 wipe. This is useful for
when trying to wipe the free space on the main drive such as the C:\ drive
because it prevents Windows from stopping the wipe process if Windows detects
that it is running low on disk space. It will also speed up the wipe process.
Note that Windows will show a warning dialog about running low on disk space.
This is normal and should be ignored, you can simply press the X in the top right
hand corner to close the dialog. XL Delete does have the option to disable that
warning. View the Settings Detailed Explanations for more information.
TIP: Run the file table purge option to clean out any old file information (such
as
file names, dates, and other attributes) that may be lying around.
