I understand how to use secure wipe but I wanted to change the number of passes. I went to Preferences/Deleting Files and then at the bottom of that page it says "When not using the Recycle Bin" and the last item is "Use Secure Wipe." What confuses me is that the default setting is that it is unchecked and the number of passes is 3. To choose an other number of passes you must check the box.
So my question is this - with the box unchecked I still appear to be able to use Secure wipe since it is one of the options from the Delete pull down button on the button bar. When I check the box I still have that option. So when it says "when not using the recycle bin" what are the other ways I would enable secure wipe? And I presume that checking the box and changing the passes will then affect the passes used for the Delete/Secure Wipe from the pull down button?
One more thing - if you reformat a drive using the full reformat, not the quick reformat, is that as effective as Secure wipe with a few passes? I ask this because it does not appear that Secure wipe allows wiping unused space on the drive.
My understanding is that the Settings let you define the default behavior, but they do not prevent you to choose a specific way of erasing a file on a case per case basis when you want.
Note that the number of passes can be an argument to the SECURE option of the *Delete command that you put in a button.
There's a Delete ERASEEMPTYSPACE command which can do that, although it usually only makes sense with an HDD, and a full format is usually enough unless you're worried about something with a lot of money/resources/sophistication who wants the old data.
(With SSDs, assuming the drive, OS and NVME/SATA controller all support TRIM, the SSD should normally return nothing useful when asked for deleted data.)
So I have figured out part of the Preferences. If you check the box next to Secure Wipe it means that if you press shft/del then not only don't the items go to the recycle bin but they are also secure erased and you can specify how many passes.
What I can't figure out is if you don't check the box, how do you specify how many passes are used when you delete button on the toolbar and select secure erase.
One more thing, and here my neophyte status is showing. I have never delved into using command language in Opus and the manual is not as clear as I would like in that regard. I am very happy to hear that Opus can secure erase blank space (so I don't need another program for that), but please give me more guidance on how I would implement the Delete ERASEEMPTYSPACE command? Where is it that I type that text?
Leo, very helpful as usual. Perhaps it is just me, but a suggestion for the Deleting Files page of preferences is that it include a note below the Use Secure wipe option to indicate exactly what you told me in your first answer above, namely check the box, set the passes, and uncheck the box.
It is great to have Opus provide the secure erase for both files and empty space, so that I need not install a special app for erasing. One remaining question - in reviewing the delete options on this page https://docs.dopus.com/doku.php?id=reference:command_reference:internal_commands:delete I did not see an option to securely erase an entire disc, both files and empty space, in one command. Does that option exist or do you first need to secure erase all files and then secure erase the empty space? This approach I suspect takes longer since the amount of empty space to be erased will grow as the files on the disc are securely deleted.
With what you said earlier in this chain about a full format being sufficient for most purposes, do you feel the same about using only a single pass with your secure wipe, namely that it is sufficient unless someone with a lot of money/resources/sophistication wants your data?
And Kondrad - are you implying that shadow copies are not considered empty space, or files, and are thus not deleted by Opus? However, would not a reformat delete them?
Shadow Copies aren't enabled on most Windows SKUs. Unless we're talking about a server (or a NAS that isn't running Windows, or a very old drive from Windows Vista), they're probably not relevant.