Eraser Reviews

I don't know if this program "used" to work, but I've been running Windows 10 and this is the crappiest most hyped free space removal tool I've ever seen. When erasing the recycle bin only, 100% of the time it erases no files because "the file names are too long". Sometimes the file names are a single number such as "0". Then there's the fact that it doesn't erase the cluster tips on ANY of the files when wiping free space. Usually you want to erase the cluster tips because even if you wipe the free space, as long as the cluster tips exist the files can still technically be reconstructed by a skilled individual. Usually, only protected files of the operating system are forbidden from having their cluster tips erased. However, when wiping free space I will get tens of thousands of error notifications that the cluster tips of each file in Free Space wasn't erased. And it's free software, so don't expect any technical support. And the forums are only full of people with similar problems as you are with few to no solutions.

Unique opensource project. Make sure select appropriate algorithm, by default it's 7 pass algo which will take a lot of time.

BEWARE! Destroyed my partition table, received blue screen of death trying to erase a partition on a separate drive from where my system partition is. I was very careful in selecting the correct partition. Yet instead of erasing the partition it messed up my partition tables preventing me from booting. I received an immediate BSOD upon executing the command. My system drive is an NVMe so perhaps this tool does not support that.

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.

It takes many, many hours to delete the unused space on a 500GB drive. If your drive is 1TB or larger and your time is worth anything, it will be faster and cheaper to copy the files to be kept to a new drive and destroy the old drive. Contrary to the information given here, the forum is useless for support. You will be forced to create a 10-character password for the forum account -- does the admin think we only have one forum account or that we should be forced to store and retrieve thousands of passwords for sites that don't have any sensitive information? -- only to find that "you have insufficient privileges to post" a question, so there is no support there. And all of the links in the FAQ topics I was interested in (erasing free space) are broken.

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)

Nice.

awsome

The "Eraser6.2.0.2971-NoRuntimes.exe" doesn't work, luckily the "Eraser6.2.0.2970.exe" works just fine in Win10

Simply open it with 7zip and choose either x86 or x64! I will admit that it was odd it required windows explorer to be closed (windows 10 x64)

Guys! extract it with 7zip and you get 2 installer one (x86) and (x64). hope it helped.

What is this 'NoRuntimes" crap? On 64-bit Windows 10, using either double-click to run the installer or right-click and "Run as Administrator" causes an "Extracting files" window to open for a split second then immediately close. Nothing extracts or installs. I had to download and install with the regular installer (well, I suppose it's 'regular' because it's not named 'NoRuntimes') of 6.2 and it installed fine. Of course you get the "A newer version of .NET is already installed" error, but simply close that window and the installation successfully completes. Are the developers even testing the installer against common, modern OS's? .

OMG, Eraser totally deleted all the data on my hard drive, not just the empty space! I have to reformat the drive to use! I've been a user for years, but hadn't used 6.2 until today. They must have changed the code to delete everything in a drive or folder instead of just scrubbing the space used by stuff that was already deleted. Make sure you back up your drive before you use this!

Thank you to eraser.heidi.ie 1) Save file, 2) Right-click so Avast AV can sweep it, 3) Left-click install, 4) .NET framework auto install, 5) Shell integration okay, 6) Right-click to Erase. Seamless on this 64-bit PC. First rate. Thanks.

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.

Error after error

I can't install this new version 6.2.0.2969. It says that it is not a valid Win32 program. I am running WinXP.

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

This is not a reliable program. When you shred something, it needs to work. (Period). There are no exceptions to security. Like the others said, I also get errors and incomplete tasks. Loading the program with admin privileges makes no difference. The program has not been updated in over a year and there is only one guy is working on it. (That's a problem right there). I'm assuming it's not open source since no one else is working on it. So why is it on source forge? And why on earth is this program getting so many good reviews. It's unreliable. Tested under XP Pro, Win7 so far.

Doesn't work. You create a schedule to clear unused space and it always silently fails because it doesn't have permissions, even if you run it as administrator. Then you open it and the scheduled tasks have randomly disappeared. It would be nice if it worked.

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...

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. This code does not accomplish what is promised, no files are overwritten and unrecoverable, as far as I can tell from the diagnostics. 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. Erase freespace creates pages of system files reports...cannot tell the difference between sys files and freespace? Joel needs to take a closer look at his work and rework it. I am still looking for a security program that does what Eraser claims to do and ask all to let me know if they find a program that is effective. I appreciate the community help with this issue.

Good job but last version 6 setup file contains old files with last modifications on 2007. About button shows 5.86 version.

after finally getting the external box for my misbehaving broken-screen laptop's 160G hd, trying to drop all of its contents to the archival 2TB drive for later perusal? (there was some good stuff on there!) used "unlocker" to get some of the last dregs off to the Recycle Bin, where they held on tough! tried again to get ALL of the DocsandSets off, failed again, and wiped the bugger clean, and tried to get those "unlockeds" out of the REcycleBin more and more, with restarts and mean stares, the Windows Fix-It page that didn't seem to load right, said it uncorrupted my RecBin, but didn't I guess, still in there, but found Eraser while actually "long" formatting the irksome drive (my first time not quick!) and we're 43min in, and almost there! Eraser worked swell for cleaning my bin, thank you! now to install XP for 36 hours, and I'll be good! 45 min in, only 2 little progress blocks to go on the format! down to one!

This tool can be useful, but it relies on outdated technical expertise, and, it's really fat when being resident in memory. After all, there's more good than bad, so you should try if it meets your personal preferences.