Eraser

Decent program that does the job with minimal fuss. It did randomly quit the other day in the middle of a job, which I luckily checked on it and noticed, though I'm not sure if that was Eraser's or Windows' fault. As some others have mentioned (complained about), it does take a long time, but that's just the nature of what it's doing, and all programs are going to be slow; if they're not, they're not doing a good job. I tried several others, and they ranged from horrible to ok. Of them, one or two would probably be suitable replacements for this one if it were to stop working, but I would say Eraser is probably the best interface and it's free, portable, and can do files, free space, and entire drives. The only thing I don't like about it is the lack of parallelization, i.e. being able to wipe multiple drives simultaneously. I see no good reason why that shouldn't be possible, and searching the forums it seemed the dev intended to add it in v6, but that was years ago and it's now on v6.2. I signed up on the forum to inquire about it, but then couldn't post, so that was a massive waste of time. To the devs, in case you read this: don't use a forum for support then not let people post in it (shouldn't need to be said, but there it is). To anyone looking to do multiple drives that happens to read this: as I said, I tried several programs, and none of them will do it except one, which you have to buy. What I ended up doing is setting up a VM with DBAN and assigning the drives I wanted to wipe to the VM. DBAN wipes multiple drives in parallel, but doing it in a VM allows for the computer to continue being used instead of being tied up for days, and it also ensures DBAN can only see the drives you want to wipe, so it helps prevent mistakes.

Very robust software, quick and easy setup and professional feel at runtime. A bit tricky to configure, consider adding a quick start Add Task at first startup (at least) so users don't have to hunt for the Add Task option (not hard to find, just counter-intuitive)

A bit complicated to use for most folks. I would guess most people are using Win 7 - about 70% share of all OS's. If the computer came preinstalled with Win 7 you do not have automatic Administrator rights. Eraser requires that. After you install Eraser it will ask you to launch the program. Once launched it is in memory as a non-Administrator program. You need to close Eraser in Task Manager and then launch it by right-clicking and choose run as Administrator. After that is done it works perfectly. I give it a four star because of its inability to explain itself - but five for erasing capability.

Before use "Erase Unused Space",you must exit eraser in tray.

Ronnraymore wrote in part on 1/9/14..."I find ver.6 to be a waste of time and space. I am the system administrator and am unable to access most of the files, which are not erased and the message "completed with errors" means nothing was done." You're sysadmin and you can't access the files? Maybe a little more detail as to what files you couldn't access would be helpful, i.e., the app itself, the files you were trying to erase, or? By definition, sysadmin, or hey, just running as admin on a Win box, gives you all access, and the ability to disable UAC etc. As to your comments as regards using Recuva..."Recuva software is fully able to recover and most indicate the file was not deleted! Those giving 5stars must be Heidi employees, since any honest appraiser would surface the fact that this program does not do what it claims." Just used Recuva on a Win 7 Pro box (real deal MS OEM disk, no manufacturer crapola on it), nada, zip, zero, no files that I used Eraser on appeared. As to eraser.heidi.ie...why are you going there for the app? Download it here. Period. The latest version, which I downloaded earlier today (11/25/14) is here, no need to go elsewhere. Maybe a little more info would be helpful to "the community", as you put it. Best...