WipeSpace Help

Free Disk Space Wiper (WipeSpace) is a free Win32 command-line utility for advanced users. It can be used to clean the free space in the disk and the free space the end of files, after the free disk space has been cleaned. WipeSpace works only in NT systems (NT, 2000, XP). Read this help page entirely before you use WipeSpace.

• Wipe Free Disk Space
• Wipe File Slack
  
• Total Disk Space Wipe
  
• Low Level Disk Read
  
• Low Level Disk Write
  
• Other Information
  

Wipe Free Disk Space

To clean the free disk space in a drive use the /W option with a directory in that drive:

wipespace /W C:\temp

This may take a long time, depending on how big the drive is.

You can clean more than one drive at a time:

wipespace /W C:\temp D:\temp

Remarks

• The /W command works only with NTFS volumes. It will not work with FAT, or FAT32 volumes. The wipe /W command can be used with FAT, or FAT32 volumes. This command is the similar to 'wipe /W drive /M' (See Wipe Help). It does not clean the MFT table, only the free disk space.
• Run this command before you run wipespace /C.
• A temporary hidden folder, named ~MPWS.TMP, is created into the specified paths. If this folder remains after you close wipespace, then delete it manually via Windows Explorer, because it consumes the free disk space. Delete ~MPWS.TMP even thought its size may be reported as zero bytes by Windows Explorer, because it still consumes space. It is not enough to place it to the Recycle Bin. Empty the Recycle Bin, after you delete this folder.
• This utility works similarly to windows cipher /W tool. It is provided only as an alternative implementation.
• User free size is cleaned, that is the free space the current user has access to (the quota).

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Wipe File Slack

To wipe the empty space in the end of existing files, known file slack or cluster tip, after you have run wipespace /W for a volume, you can use wipespace /C with the directories you want to clean as arguments, usually the entire disk, for example:

wipeslack /C C:\

This may take a very long time, depending on how many files you have.

System Files

If you run wipespace /C on drive C:\ (the drive where Windows system directory is), wipespace /C will access the system files. The original file data and properties will left unchanged after you run wipespace /C. However, Windows will complain, because of the temporary property changes as shown in the figure below:

No change of any kind is done to the files, so you can safely ignore this false alert. In this case select 'Cancel' in the first dialog, and 'Yes' in the second one, to accept (keep) the false reported changes. The alert may show more than once.

We recommend you clean windows directory only once, separately from the rest of directories. The other times you can skip it.

To skip a directory, for example the windows directory, use:

wipespace /C C:\ /S C:\Windows

Use absolute paths with the /S option.

Batch Wipe

For Windows directory you need to tell Windows you accept the changes as explained above, every time it asks. For all other directories, the wipe process does not requires any user interaction. You can run wipespace /C for the entire drives, preferable at night when the computer is not is use.

To shutdown the computer automatically when wipespace /C finishes for all drives, for example C, D, and E, you may combine wipespace /C with Wipe03 as follows:

wipespace /C C: D: E: /S C:\Windows & wipe /E

Do not forget to use /S to skip windows directory, otherwise Windows will ask to confirm the changed system files.

You can also combine wipespace /W with wipespace /C as follows:

wipespace /W C: D: E: & wipespace /C C: D: E: /S C:\Windows & wipe /E

Remarks

• For optimal results run wipespace /W BEFORE running wipespace /C. A better order is /W, /C, /W, however for best results use /T (see below).
• The wipespace /C can clean all the free space of the non-locked files. Close as much programs as you can before running wipespace /C, given that it is requires exclusive access over files. Locked files will be reported as errors.
• The wipespace /C may have temporary side effects on some applications, because it temporary locks files and temporary modifies file attributes.
• The wipespace /C can work with FAT and FAT32 volumes but is not tested. It works best with NTFS volumes. For NTFS, the secondary file streams slack is also wiped.

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Total Disk Space Wipe

The /T option combines /W and /C. It runs /C after the last random step of /W, before deleting the occupied free space. This way /C runs in a state when there is not free space in the hard disk. The embedded /C command may report more errors in this case, but they can be ignored. After /C is run the occupied free space is freed. This option ensures the best free space wipe. You can run /T with the same parameters as /W. However, the embedded /C runs on the directories, not in volumes, so it is recommended to specify a volume root for /T. For example, to wipe free space and file slack in drives C: and D: use:

wipespace /T C: D:

Like /C the /T option support skipping directories with /S option, as for example:

wipespace /T C: D: /S C:\Windows

The /S option has no effect on embedded /W command, the /S directories are passed only to the embedded /C command. The same rules as for /S as in /C apply.

Remarks

• There is no warranty the embedded /C command in /T wipes all file slack. However, the /T command wipes more data than wipespace /W followed by wipespace /C, if they are used alone, one by one. The /T command wipes slightly less data than wipespace /T followed by wipespace /C. However, using only wipespace /T is usually enough.
• The additional errors for the embedded /C command come from the fact that small files data are saved inside MFT and do not really occupy a separate cluster.

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Low Level Disk Read

Command:

wipespace /R volume [startSector [endSector] [/P [H A U]]^ [/F hexBytes] [/A asciiString] ]

To get information about the sectors in a volume, for example C: type:

wipespace /R C:

To view any range of sectors from a volume, for example from start sector 0 to end sector 12 use:

wipespace /R C: 0 12

You can also specify a range as the start sector plus a sector count, for example the following command is the same as above:

wipespace /R C: 0 +12

As another example, wipespace /R C: 10 +5, will print sectors from 10 to 15. To view only one sector specify only it, for example, wipespace /R C: 10.

By default wipespace prints the sector number and the sector data in HEX, ASCII and UNICODE, however, this can be verbose. You can control what to print with the /P (print) option. It you use /P alone only sector numbers are printed. To print any HEX, ASCII, or UNICODE use H, A, U respectively. For example the following prints only HEX and ASCII views:

wipespace /R C: 0 +12 /P H A

You can also find a byte sequence in hard disk by using the /F (find) option. Only sectors that match will be printed. /F can be combined with /P to limit the output. For example to print all sectors in range 1111111 2222222 that contain the byte sequence 64 64 use:

wipespace /R C: 1111111 2222222 /P /F 64 6F

The output can be very verbose so try to limit your search. The output of find will look like this:

(2, 3) Found 1 [at 327] in sector: 10177840 of [10177839, 10177841] Cluster: 1272230

This means that 2 from 3 sectors of range 10177839, 10177841 have been scanned and one mach if found in sector 10177840, at offset 327 from the start of this sector (10177840). If found index is reported as negative, for example [at -3] this means that the byte sequence starts in the previous sector, -3 bytes before, that is the last three bytes of the previous sector, and the pattern ends to this sector. Only the fist match in a sector is reported.

If you not want to type hexadecimal bytes with /F to can use /A option with an ASCII string. /A works the same as /F. For example, to find the string MyPlanet use:

wipespace /R C: 1111111 2222222 /P /A MyPlanet

Searching (scanning) the entire disk for patterns is an exaustive operation. Try to limit your search sectors.

Remarks

• Sector numbers start from zero. For volume partitions the sector can start at another number.
• This command is similar to wipe /N. However in wipe /N sector numbers start from one. Keep this in mind if use both commands at the same time. You need to subtract one from sectors reported by wipe /N.
• This operation will try to read and print all sectors given. It does not consult the bad sectors table for the volume, so it may report errors for all bad sectors it finds, even thought those sectors may not be any more in use.
• In /R and /Z the sector range will be checked if it is valid, but will not be enforced. Only a warning will be given if a specified sector is outside the volume sector range.
• To find the cluster number for a sector, use this formula: clusterNumber = (sectorNumber / Sectors per cluster); if( (sectorNumber mod Sectors per cluster) > 0 ) clusterNumber = clusterNumber + 1;

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Low Level Disk Write

WipeSpace allows you to selectively wipe disk sector ranges with random data (one pass). To wipe sectors from 10177832 to 10177847 (the end one is also included) use:

wipespace /Z D: 10177832 10177847

As with read (/R) the same range can be specified as:

wipespace /Z D: 10177832 +15

This command is destructive and normally should not be used. It will ask you for confirmation before it starts.

Remarks

• This command is very dangerous. It can destroy your entire hard disk data. Use with extreme care.
• Sector numbers start from zero. For volume partitions the sector can start at another number.
• You can combine this command with wipe /N /I to get the sectors numbers of a files and directly overwrite them. However, this is strongly NOT recommended. Use wipe to properly delete sensitive files. In wipe /N sector numbers start from one. Keep this in mind if use both commands at the same time. You need to subtract one from sectors reported by wipe /N.
• This tool is not intended to wipe large number of sectors from a hard disk. It writes sectors one by one so, using it to wipe the entrie hard disk may take a very long time, and will crash windows.

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Other Information

See also: Wipe Help.

The recommended way to interrupt WipeSpace is to press Ctrl+C in the command line window, where WipeSpace is running. This way, WipeSpace will properly clean up the temporary files it uses, and will properly save file integrity. However, despite the way you close WipeSpace, there will not be any loss of data.

To avoid having to run WipeSpace often, delete sensitive files using Wipe03.

There is not warranty that WipeSpace (/T, /W, and /C) will clean all unused disk space. It will wipe most of the free space, however, some free clusters belonging to NTFS meta files, such as the $Mft file, or directory indexes may still be left unwiped (such sectors are not really free). There is no safe way to clean such clusters. You need to defrag the drive to free them. In extreme cases you may consider to use the /Z option, however it is very dangerous for the rest of data to do so.

To specify volume names in /W, /T and /C commands, use a semicolon after the drive letter. For example, wipespace /C C:, or wipespace /C C:\ and not wipespace /C C - the last will treat c as a directory inside the current directory.

There can be side effects on Windows when you run this tool. For example, system restore data may be cleaned.

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