CCleaner question in what to erase?

Wipe Free Space does just what it implies, it overwrites the unused space on a drive. The purpose is to make the data of deleted files unrecoverable. Drive Wiper will overwrite an entire drive...existing files, everything will be gone and unable to be recovered. These two functions have nothing to do with defragging or creating space. They're all about making stuff on your computer unrecoverable like if the FBI was coming over to snoop or you were selling your laptop.

Depends on what you want to do. If you want to clean your computer and reinstall everything, choose Drive Wiper. It will do exactly what it says. It will wipe the ENTIRE drive, leaving nothing on it (meaning the computer won't work after that).

Wipe Free Space also does what it says. It writes gibberish over any free space on the drive. It does NOT add any space on the drive. The only available space is already "free" so it won't help there. It only prevents someone from finding your "deleted" files.

If you want to free up space, you have to remove things. First, run the Cleaner. Click "Analyze", then after it runs, click "Run Cleaner". Click "yes" when it asks if you're sure, etc. (Depending on how much space is being taken up by temp files, etc., this may clear up a little of space or a LOT of space).

Next, click on "Registry", then "Scan for Issues". After it runs, click "Fix Selected Issue(s)". Say "yes" to the backup.

Then close CCleaner. Click "Start", type in Defragmenter in the box, then run defragmenter (may take an hour or more).

If you need more space, you'll have to delete things like files containing videos, pictures, etc. Copy them all to a disk first (if you want to save them) (CD or DVD). If you copy them to disk, it's a good idea to make at least two copies of each disk in case one gets damaged.

Wipe Free Space Only = Securely wipes free space on your hard-drive without touching data.

Entire Drive = Securely wipes the whole drive (like a partition and format) will wipe all your data!!

It does not add free space or defrag your hard-drive. Use the cleaner to clean up all temp files ect... this will remove all temp files increasing space.

If you wish to defrag your hard-drive the same guy has made another program for that called "Defraggler": http://www.piriform.com/defraggler

-hope this helps

Hello,

To answer your question, if anything is wiped, it means all data that is there is gone. So if you try to do a drive wipe on your primary drive, which hopefully the program will not let you do, all of your data on that hard drive is gone and will not be recoverable. So wiping is to make it so you cannot recover any data. So wiping the free space should be fine to do since there isn't any data there.