Erasing USB flash drives?

On 6/16/2012 02:24, Bill in Co wrote:
000-222-000 wrote:
"Bill in wrote in message
...
Has anyone come across a program that quick erases a USB flash drive
stick,
so that a simple unerase program doesn't show what files were on it?

"Eraser" doesn't seem to be able to do it for flash dirves, although it
works well on other drives. (I'm just talking about using the basic
erase
options here)

The WinXP disk defragger(s) don't do it, either.

BUT the standard Win98/ME defragger DOES do it! And you only have to run
it
for a few seconds to clear traces of any file entries; it doesn't need to
run to completion.

Clearly the Win98/ME defrag works a lot better in that one regard (on FAT
volumes) than the WinXP defragger(s) do. It somehow erases the FAT
table
entries, where the Win XP defraggers don't.



Win98/ME works [like] Eraser;
because the USB flash drive stick is FAT32 volumes..

Yes, but that doesn't explain why the WinXP defragger doesn't do it when it
is defragging a FAT32 volume, while the Win98/ME one does:

Both the regular Win98/ME defragger AND the the regular WinXP defragger can
defrag FAT32 volumes, but only the former (the Win98/ME one) seems to erase
any previously erased file table entries (that can be discovered by running
an unerase program).

Not file allocation table entries, but the directory entries. The
clusters are marked free in the FAT regardless of whether a defrag was
run. The "deleted" dir entries are flagged as free too, but not erased.
The dir entry points to the starting cluster in the FAT.

That's disappointing if true that the XP defragger doesn't scrub the
dir. Of course it's not as relevant today for speed issues, as it used
to be.

You could try this. Create a new directory off the root. Copy everything
from the root on to to the new dir. Delete everything except your new
dir. Then copy back. I would be surprised if deleted entries would
survive. Technically the deleted remnants wouldn't be a part of these
"new" directories. Of course that might still leave some entries in the
root.

Bill Blanton wrote:
On 6/16/2012 02:24, Bill in Co wrote:
000-222-000 wrote:
"Bill in wrote in message
...
Has anyone come across a program that quick erases a USB flash drive
stick,
so that a simple unerase program doesn't show what files were on it?

"Eraser" doesn't seem to be able to do it for flash dirves, although it
works well on other drives. (I'm just talking about using the basic
erase options here)

The WinXP disk defragger(s) don't do it, either.

BUT the standard Win98/ME defragger DOES do it! And you only have to
run it
for a few seconds to clear traces of any file entries; it doesn't need
to
run to completion.

Clearly the Win98/ME defrag works a lot better in that one regard (on
FAT
volumes) than the WinXP defragger(s) do. It somehow erases the FAT
table entries, where the Win XP defraggers don't.



Win98/ME works [like] Eraser;
because the USB flash drive stick is FAT32 volumes..

Yes, but that doesn't explain why the WinXP defragger doesn't do it when
it is defragging a FAT32 volume, while the Win98/ME one does:

Both the regular Win98/ME defragger AND the the regular WinXP defragger
can
defrag FAT32 volumes, but only the former (the Win98/ME one) seems to
erase
any previously erased file table entries (that can be discovered by
running
an unerase program).

Not file allocation table entries, but the directory entries. The
clusters are marked free in the FAT regardless of whether a defrag was
run. The "deleted" dir entries are flagged as free too, but not erased.
The dir entry points to the starting cluster in the FAT.

Directory entries - I stand corrected. Thanks.

That's disappointing if true that the XP defragger doesn't scrub the
dir. Of course it's not as relevant today for speed issues, as it used
to be.

It (WinXP defraggers) evidently don't scrub the directory entries (which
probably is not an issue for most folks, anyways).

You could try this. Create a new directory off the root. Copy everything
from the root on to to the new dir. Delete everything except your new
dir. Then copy back. I would be surprised if deleted entries would
survive. Technically the deleted remnants wouldn't be a part of these
"new" directories. Of course that might still leave some entries in the
root.

I expect that would work, but it's a bit of work to do this each and every
time. At any rate, usually Eraser does it fine on most drives, but for
flash drives, it appears to be a toss-up in some cases.