# safe erasing files, overwrite free disc space

## goofus

how can i safely erase files? i tried the kde shredder but that beast is so slow. it takes ages to delete a 600MB file. are there better tools? any other tools?

exist programs to overwrite free disc space?

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## mens

there is the shred program, which is part of coreutils, which you most probably have installed already.

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## goofus

yes, i have that. i'll try that out. and what about securing free space?  :Smile: 

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## mens

What exactly do you mean by 'securing free space'

If you want to shred files you already delete, you could re-create an empty file with touch and then shred that one.

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## drescherjm

I don't know of the official specs for kde shredder but if it does any kind of government wipe that has got to take a long time. Some wipes require writing over the file 7 times (or more) with garbage data. On a 600MB file that will take a very long time... See this article for a utility and some more info: http://www.infoanarchy.org/wiki/index.php/File_wipe

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## goofus

on windows i use evidence eliminator and it secures free space. it overwrites free parts with 111+000+random for example. and it does it fairly quick, though. i mean if i want to sell my hdd i want to secure all the free space, too for example.

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## mens

emerge wipe

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