What Does It Do: When Erasing Files

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By now you must be wondering what exactly does this program do to my computer when erasing files. You have come to the right place, the procedures gone through when erasing files are explained here.

After determining the file type (files compressed or encrypted at the file system level are supported on Windows NT and 2000, but Administrator privileges are required for low-level disk access), Eraser needs to determine the size of the file. When calculating the size, the cluster tip area is included so the data stored on it will be erased too (see Overwriting Properly at Advanced Topics), unless you have deselected this option.

Once the size is calculated, the file will be overwritten with the selected method (see detailed descriptions of the available methods at Advanced Topics). Eraser takes care of flushing write buffers to make sure that the data really gets written to the disk and is not only saved in a buffer somewhere. If the overwriting was successful, the final step is to properly delete the file.

Before removing the reference of the file from the file system (standard delete), the file will be truncated to zero length to clear traces of the allocated clusters, the filename will be overwritten (if selected) and finally file dates (creation, access, modified) will be scrambled to complete the file erasing.

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