When you delete sensitive files using standard Windows "Delete" command, the operating system does not shred contents of the documents from hard drive, it just marks disk space, earlier occupied by the files, as "free". To completely remove all the traces of the earlier deleted files, use Wipe Free Space command to wipe free space on the disk, where these files were stored.

In order to clean free space on a hard drive, BCWipe creates temporary files with wiping pattern inside. These temporary files overwrite old data written to the disk. Using a smart technology, BCWipe can overwrite free space without allocating all available disk space at once, it means that the drive never gets 'Low disk space' condition.


Watch how to Wipe Free Space

To wipe free space on a disk, run Wipe Free Space command from Windows Explorer using a pop-up menu. Right-click on the drive item you want to wipe: this will bring up the menu that includes Wipe Free Space. The following picture illustrates how to run the command:



When you run the Wipe Free Space command the following window appears:



The top part of the window reports information about the disk - total size, file system, free space. Click Manage Reserved Part if you want to enable Reserved Space feature and assign the free space threshold. See Reserved Space chapter for more details.

Choose the desired wiping scheme in Scheme drop-down list. Click Edit/View Scheme to see the wiping scheme patterns and/or to create a custom scheme.

BCWipe reports Estimated wiping time at the bottom part of the window. When BCWipe estimates the time, it assumes that the writing speed is some average value and calculates how long it will take to wipe the free space.

Click Check to make BCWipe "try" the writing operation for this specific disk to make more exact estimation.



NOTE: Before running the Wipe Free Space command on the disk, it would be wise to:

- close all applications. Some programs create temporary files while they are running. Those temporary files will not be wiped when you run the command. Besides, Windows swap file (or page-file) may store sensitive information that is used by currently loaded applications. This part of swap file will not be wiped.

- check the disk for errors. If some part of the hard drive was in incorrect state before running BCWipe, it may cause more serious problem when BCWipe allocates all available space.