I would try this but it is pointless to download such a large program using outdated methods. No offense to the Developers but this can be done for free with about 833KB as Fubar has already so kindly posted.

It also costs $30.00 for a paying customer to do what can be done for free. No bargin at all, so Thumbs down for selling an inferior product to unknowing customers.

Fubar, don't get angry we need your comments here and not every user is as experienced as you . I hope you will change your mind as we need knowledgeable testers to help the new folks from avoiding costly and time consuming downloads.

Vidimo Se!

Fubar please dont go!! I come here once in a while and I read what you say! and trust what you say! Thank you!

I think this program is much too large for what it does but then there has to be something to put on the disk as over write.

I have nothing that I actually need to hide form anyone on my computer because when I do make something I do not want others to know I make a copy either in disk or stick and then over write the original at least twice before deleting it. I think that is the ewt way to take care of such things.

Keep your computer clean every day rather than waiting until it gets far too messy to clean properly. A little time and thought is much more effective than this program is. If you are not going to do it as you go then give this a try.

# 14 Fubar
Please dont stop posting you are one of the most respected guys to post on this site and you certainly would be a major loss. I really hope you will re-consider and very much hope to read your comments on the next GOTD offerings. I look for them every time

Please note re necessity of disk wiping.

If you wish to sell/ give away a hard drive, dump an old computer, it might be wise to wipe the disk(s) clean securely to avoid risk of data/ identity stealing or being persecuted for disk content.

If you author material, again a complete disk wipe will protect your intellectual property rights.

Similarly, some VERY persistent viruses may need a complete disk clean and Paragon have an excellent reputation for quality software!

Incidentally to those comments about multiple pass wiping, magnetic disks retain a small residue of previous content so just wiping with 0s and 1s once can enable data recovery, with the right hardware/ software.

Multiple wipe encrypted passes will prevent ANY data recovery methods.

With Flash drives, there may be logs of partition or drive file allocation operations, hence the need for more thorough and secure wiping, though data over-written once is irecoverable, it might be wished to remove drive history and 'deleted' file names!

Anyway, another most excellent software giveaway!

I LOVE Paragon's products, BUT, 84 MB?!?! - for this??? 84 KB would make a lot more sense. To completely erase data from a programmers standpoint, all that's necessary is writing all 0s then all 1s to the file(s) or partition(s) to be obliterated. Anything beyond this is beyond pointless. What is it that needs the 84 megs anyway??

If I can only use the program on the computer that I download it to, how do I try it on a computer that I want to erase he hrd drive on? I certainly don't want to do it on this computer.
Am I not understanding something?
ToddG

Wow, got a little heated here today. I follow this forum almost every day and many times because I like the in depth reviews at dotTech I go there for Ashraf's take. Although I don't always agree with his choice, he always makes sense. IMHO One thing to try and remember is we are here to help each other out and we all have different needs and wants regarding software, thus the reason why GAOTD is trying a different rating system. To all who are concerned about the large size "Paragon" LOL (I don't mean that in disrespect), they make reliable software that does what it says, sometimes like bringing a elephant gun to a turkey shoot but still the best. IMHO And Fubar I checked out your link at #27 and found the info to be very interesting nda from a respected group of professors and an excellent school. Don't go as you are much appreciated.

Installed fine on Windows XP Home sp3. Created my boot disk right away, and I'm ready to wipe any computer I want! You do this on the left side, called Wiping Media Builder. I chose typical. Probably fine for my needs. Also, the registration process shouldn't be so hard. You click the zipped file, it opens and shows you the setup.exe file. Double click that and when it gets to the point to enter the serial number, just click "Get Free Key" button on top right (not exact phrasing) and it takes you to the registration page. Fill out your information, and you'll get your email quickly, which contains the serial key, etc. I couldn't copy and paste this into the boxes, but it didn't take that long to type it. I love Paragon products, and with the modern huge hard drives, the 84 meg size shouldn't be a problem! Thanks GAOTD and Paragon!

84 mb seems a bit excessive = fail
Installed and activated on Windows 7 x64 = win
The software seems to do the job = win
Overall = WIN
Thanks GOTD and Paragon.

Re Mike:

Wear leveling may distribute the load amongst those *switches*, but it doesn’t hide them, so over-writing everything (i.e. flipping all switches to “0″) would be & work the same.

Actually, many flash drives reserve some extra space as part of the wear leveling, so even on an empty drive there may be some old data.

#7: "It’s difficult to guarantee that a flash drive has been securely erased. The wear leveling algorithm hides the physical disk structure, making it impossible to write to a specific part of the disk. Overwriting it many times should erase the whole disk, but it cannot be guaranteed. That may be why this program doesn’t work with flash disks. If you really want to destroy the data, physically destroy the disk."

There is no reason for multiple overwrites -- unlike hdd there are no moving parts & no large physical area for recording "1"s & "0"s. Essentially switches are on/off. Wear leveling may distribute the load amongst those *switches*, but it doesn't hide them, so over-writing everything (i.e. flipping all switches to "0") would be & work the same. Destroying a flash memory device however is much trickier if you want to be very paranoid, since individual memory chips would need to be destroyed -- not just the device casing & internal board.

* * *

#14: "ATA and SATA drives manufactured after 2001 and greater than 15 GB have secure-erase capabilities built into the hardware."

#21: "I use CMRR HDD Eraser... to totaly wipe my old and useless small drives. I believe there is no better, maybe just as good, software for this purpose."

There are many extras with Paragon Disk Wiper -- if you'll never use them, if you're destroying ALL data, in *many* circumstances a hammer or even a large rock work as well. Even better, afterward drop the drive into the bay -- an excellent excuse for a day spent fishing. ;-)

* * *

#24: "What is wrong with just formating the flash drive"

A *quick* format doesn't over-write everything, but just does a new sort of table of contents.

* * *

#25: "I am going to check back later to see how many complaints there are saying something like: “Don’t trust this program!"

It's Paragon -- 'Nuff Said. ;-)

* * *

#26: "However after a simple “Erase all deleted files”... gave me back 38Gb, because apparently on my OS which is Windows Vista Home Premium Vista will normally create up to 4 “Shadow copies” of just about everything."

If you just want/need to get rid of the shadow copies, 1) turn them off, & if you want to use System Restore, back on. 2) Windows' own built-in Disk Cleanup will delete all but the latest copy. 3) Looking at the disk/partition in WinXP or earlier gets rid of all shadow copies -- if you don't dual boot, you can still boot to something like LiveXP on either a CD/DVD or USB stick. And remember that You set how much space the shadow copies can take up.

The 84 mb size seems kinda pointless when the're programs of considerable smaller size that does the same thing!! Plus can use that 84 mb space for a game download instead wasting it on this program! Unless it does something else important - who needs it???

#1: "* Refuses to wipe my USB/flash drive."
#18: "Re securely erasing flash drives:"
RE: Flash Memory vs. hard drives etc...

A traditional hard drive uses one or more platters, and the heads that magnetically read/write data to these spinning disks float barely above them on a cushion of air -- it's an arrangement that looks like some sort of hi-tech record player. Because the heads have a very slight bit of wiggle room, & because unlike a record there are no grooves to guide by, the heads don't write in the exact same path every single time -- something that can be more pronounced if the drive is set on one side, then another, as with external drives. Stored data is actually deleted when new data is recorded over it. Some types of formatting & the most basic erasure replaces all the recorded "1s" & "0"s with all "1"s, "0"s, or [pseudo] random data -- better erasure at its simplest means just doing that over & over, based on the idea that the heads will wiggle a little bit each pass, and if you do that enough, you'll probably catch any lingering data on the right & left of each track.

Flash memory has no moving parts. The logic behind erasing programs using multiple passes cannot apply -- they just help wear out the flash memory sooner -- but over-writing all the "1"s & "0"s is still the same... it's easy to copy the contents exactly, block by block to a hdd for analysis, so a secure wipe needs to over-write everything once. Otherwise I don't know that a lot of research has ever been published on securely wiping flash memory, &/or that it's really needed... I *think* they've been much more focused on ways to encrypt/secure your data in case your USB stick is lost or stolen. Flash memory cards like those you use in your cameras would certainly be easier to destroy physically, & can be faster since many (most?) are speed rated [USB sticks often have *some* faster memory, along with a lot of the slower stuff -- why testing & retesting sticks for Ready Boost gives different results.]. As far as different software goes, electronics sitting between the flash memory & your PC/laptop (either built into your card reader or USB stick) *Mimic* a hard drive, AND, provide the USB interface, even working differently depending on where & how it's plugged in. TO say mileage varies would be a gross understatement.

Software simply may or may not work, & it depends on the hardware inside your PC/laptop, as well as your particular flash memory device(s). Different apps may see the same USB flash memory card+reader or stick as 1 or 4 partitions for example, & tag those partitions valid or invalid. The manufacturer often provides special formatting software, which may/may not have different results than formatting with other software &/or Windows. If you have problems the simplest choice is often to just use some other software, but it can sometimes help just to plug your USB device into jacks that are part of the PC's motherboard itself, versus hubs, or jacks that are part of the case etc. When/if software doesn't work because it's looking for a real hard drive & not a poor imitation, simpler apps might -- especially the DOS & *nix varieties.

I used East-Tec Eraser just yesterday after getting it free from dotTech.org at: http://dottech.org/freebies/dottech-exclusives/6382

It worked wonders for my pc.

My pc has only 222Gb on C Drive and it was down to 122Gb free space and has begun increasingly going down a bit more and more everyday.

However after a simple "Erase all deleted files" click in the evening when I went to bed, when I got up next morning I had 160Gb free space.

Imagine that a freebie that gave me back 38Gb, because apparently on my OS which is Windows Vista Home Premium Vista will normally create up to 4 "Shadow copies" of just about everything. And East-Tec finds all of these on command when you erase even just a URL with it! Which you can do by the way

So what with Ashraf's recommendation at comment #1 and Bubby at #2 about Paragon's app being overweight for the job I think I'll stick with Eraser

Thanks but no thanks today GOTD

I am going to check back later to see how many complaints there are saying something like: "Don't trust this program! I tried it and now all my programs and files are gone!"

@Fubar - I always look for your comments when I see a program here that might interest me. You've saved me more than once. What will I do without you?

What is wrong with just formating the flash drive, or am I missing something?

Good review as always. I agree that DBAN and EastTec are the way to go.

@Fubar: I use CMRR HDD Eraser (DOS), the one you recommended previously, to totaly wipe my old and useless small drives. I believe there is no better, maybe just as good, software for this purpose. Installed, it is only 2.03MB. I also am using Widows 7 on one of my laptops, the others will be upgraded soon, it is that GOOD. Voting on new offerings, on GAOTD, seems to have gone the way of "if so and so said it is good or bad, that is good enough for me", making this more of a popularity contest, than useful exchange of how this program may be integated into one's system without a total meltdown. I appreciate your comments, and would miss the collaboration of shared information.

#15
32bit ONLY – no use for my 64bit Windows 7

See program description:
If you are 64bit system user follow the link here
http://files.giveawayoftheday.com/ParagonDiskWiper_x64.zip

Takes up WAY too much space. I'm going to use the programs #2 wrote. Or at least try them.

Re securely erasing flash drives:
By aheer coincidence, I happen to be using Sysinternals SDELETE program right now as I type, to delete some files from a 1GB Sandisk MicroCruzer flash drive!
For anyone who hasn't encountered Sysinternals' excellent (and always-free) utilities yet, do a Web search for them. They have been bought out by Microsoft, but that's not necessaruly a bad thing in this case. And for the paranoid, most of the utilities either pre-date the MS buyout, or are STILL written by the near-legendary Mark Russinovich.

Jess, click 'View all comments' for the full archive.

Fubar, thanks for the link & info, never realised this was possible.

@ Fubar (comment 5)
If possible could you please post your archived comment here, as your link only produced three comments and not yours.

I found this entertaining piece at http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_flash_drive#Good_Points

" Some flash drives can keep the data, even if they are put in water.[5] Some data may even survive the washing machine, but this is not a designed feature, and people should not rely on it. Leaving the flash drive out to dry completely before allowing current to run through it has been known to result in a working drive with no future problems. Channel Five's Gadget Show cooked a flash drive with propane, froze it with dry ice, submerged it in various acidic liquids, ran over it with a jeep and fired it against a wall with a mortar. A company specializing in recovering lost data from computer drives managed to recover all the data on the drive.[6] All data on the other removable storage devices tested, using optical or magnetic technologies, were destroyed. "

Even government departments have been known to carry highly sensitive data on flash drives that have later been lost, so simple non-bloated tools that offer permanent destruction of flash drive data are very useful. A pity that today's offering is so extraordinarily large as to be off-limits for many people around the globe who are on slow dialup.

Thanks to Kiwi and Deon for very helpful tips.

32bit ONLY - no use for my 64bit Windows 7

As usual, we have people giving thumbs-up to useless products and thumbs-down to good ones. Disk Redactor and Heidi Eraser do not wipe disks. The link I have provided, which the usual moron-brigade is giving thumbs-down to, is for the University of California, San Diego, Center for Magnetic Recording Research. If you'd bother to read the very first link, which is clearly beyond the capability of many here, you'd see that ATA and SATA drives manufactured after 2001 and greater than 15 GB have secure-erase capabilities built into the hardware. You'd see that the drives themselves can out-perform the software approaches in every respect, including DoD 5220 and the obsolete Gutmann. You'd also see that the drive's secure-erase should be performed even if the drive is going to be physically destroyed. As soon as I get some more hardware and upgrade to Windows 7, I'll quit wasting my time posting here.

Does this software have the option to selectively delete files i.e deleting only what you want rather than an entire partition ? I use Ccleaner for deleting my files, it has customizable security levels up to 35 algorithms and best of all it's free.

Roaring Siren

Try using CCLEANER It wipe free space securely on flash disc and HDD and you cannot retreive old data. I use it to clean harddrives and flash discs.
Website: http://www.ccleaner.com/

Thanx
Deon

@Ashraf -#1 "The Bad * Refuses to wipe my USB/flash drive."

This is not a bad at all. Would your car be bad because it cannot fly? In both cases the design is not compatible with your 'bad'.

The wiper-software is designed to wipe data from harddisks with writing heads. The writing will be done several times to eleminate residual magnetic traces of the old data (this is what wiping is).

A flash-drive works through an entire different concept (no moving parts), there are no writing heads, there cannot be any wiping (multiple writings using a writing head) only deleting or erasing (erasing will overwrite with dummy data).

A feature to erase flash-drives would be a nice extra, not really a bad when missing, but wiping is not possible. Like a car being able to fly would be very nice, but it is not bad at all when the car is missing this feature.

Paragon disk wiper is designed to wipe disks (it's in the name).

http://www.paragon-software.com/registration/dw2010pers.html

You can grab your reg key from the above link, and install the program later if you want.

Some flash disks don't have MBR entry, and Disk Wiper can work only with disks having MBR.
The solution is very simple: use Disk Wiper's feature "Update MBR" on flash disk, it will write standard code to MBR. Now Disk Wiper can wipe this flash drive.

PROS:

* Successful download/installation/activation/registration on Vista Home Premium x64 SP2 OS (be sure to use GOTD 64-bit download link).
* Improved 64-support: No need to do manual re-boot for operations that don't complete. Program will auto re-boot to special mode to finish operation.
* Smooth program access without needing to use Admin Mode.
* Pleasant, simple-to-understand, easy-to-navigate GUI.
* Help Guidance located within program.
* Provides support for GUID partition table.
* Provides support for latest linux kernel.
* Provides integratioon of linux/DOS wiping media directly to installation package.
* Smooth, easy, quick, successful program operation.
* Provides context menu hint system for all program functions.
* Provides "save to scheduler" feature.
* Provides "check recovery disc" feature.
* Provides "virtual mode" operation to allow for rollback of select or all process changes.
* allows user to enable 64 KB clusters for FAT16
* allows user to ask for volume label before doing partition deletee.
* allows user to ask for confirmation before converting from FAT16 to FAT32.
* provides detailed explanation of wipe-method algorithm.
* allows user to enable data loss protection in case of system crash.

CONS:

* User must go to developer website to manually ask for serial number (via completing name & e-mail information) to get registration codes.
* Installation process is not as straightforward as it could be. The intial setup.exe executable installs the actual installer onto the user's "C" Drive. User must then find/access the installer to complete installation process.
* Program's process options and choices can be a bit overwhelming for first-time (novice) users.
* No technical support contact information located within program.

SUMMARY: - Program efficiently and successfull does what it says it will do. Definite keeper for me. Thanks, GOTD and Paragon.

100% Freeware Option:

Eraser

It's difficult to guarantee that a flash drive has been securely erased. The wear leveling algorithm hides the physical disk structure, making it impossible to write to a specific part of the disk. Overwriting it many times should erase the whole disk, but it cannot be guaranteed. That may be why this program doesn't work with flash disks. If you really want to destroy the data, physically destroy the disk.

84MB for an advanced delete/format?!? How ridiculous is that?!

See my comment #27 for the Paragon Disk Wiper 8.5 Special Edition giveaway for the quickest, most secure free disk wipe (entire drive).

Free (and more versatile) alternative: Eraser
Better free (and more versatile) alternative: ccleaner

> Refuses to wipe my USB/flash drive.

This is a major negative.

In fact, I wouldn't mind a little program
dedicated to wiping the flash drive.

The bigger the flash drive gets, the handier that would be.

Free software to wipe a hard disk is nothing new. Personally there isn't a lot on my hard disk that would require Department of Defence level privacy, but as with most software it really does come down to personal choice (or how badly you need to CYA). I guess if some secret agency became aware of my plans for world domination - they would probably steal my computer before I had decided to erase everything and throw the hard drive into an active volcano.

Normally this would be a disastrous bug or defect, but in this case wiping your hard drive beyond all hope of recovery is actually the intended outcome.

Here are some other Free programs that will help you kiss your data bye-bye.

Some may say Paragons 84.1 MB is a bit bloated and overweight for what should be a simple and lightweight program.

*-----
File & Free Space Wipers
(Good for wiping data/files or "clear space" on a hard disk partition while leaving other data/files on the drive/partition untouched)

1. Disk Redactor (383 KB)
http://www.cezeo.com/products/disk-redactor/

2. Eraser (9.3 MB)
http://eraser.heidi.ie/

*-----

Wipe entire drives & partitions
(Typical use - before disposal of a drive to ensure there is no recoverable data left on the drive).

1. Disk Wipe (1.04 MB)
http://www.diskwipe.org/

2. Active@ Kill Disk (4.24 MB CD ISO)
http://www.killdisk.com/

3. DBAN (5.5 MB)
http://www.dban.org/

The Good
* Straightforward and fairly easy to use.
* Can wipe whole disks or select partitions.
* Can wipe internal or external hard drives.
* Can wipe unused space.
* Allows user to define custom wipe algorithm.
* Allows user to create a bootable CD/DVD or bootable USB/flash drive to use Disk Wiper without having to load into Windows.
* Comes with basic partition management tools.

The Bad
* Refuses to wipe my USB/flash drive.
* You are limited to using either Paragon's secure wiping algorithm, or defining your own - you have no other choices to use other popular and time tested algorithms.
* When selecting what hard drive or partition to wipe, if you want to select a partition and the partition size is small seeing what partition it is is very difficult.

Free Alternatives
East-Tec Eraser 2008

For final verdict, recommendations, and full review please click here.