CNET Editors' review
MariusSoft's Disk Scrubber is not anything you can't find bunches of times without trying very hard; namely, a utility designed to delete files from your hard disk until they are unrecoverable. You may not know that the things you delete from your system really aren't gone: Windows merely deallocates the physical space the deleted data occupies, and then overwrites it, eventually, in its own sweet time. But even then your deleted files can be recovered by increasingly less sophisticated means. To really remove files, you need to overwrite them many times until they're unreadable. There are several ways to do this; Disk Scrubber uses Windows' built-in cipher program. It will "scrub" any selected NTFS partition on any hard disk, leaving the data unrecoverable. Why scrub? Protection. Laptop owners should regularly scrub old but still-sensitive data; likewise anyone who sells, donates, or even throws away an old computer or disk drive should keep personal data like passwords and credit card numbers out of the wrong hands. It's plain good disk hygiene, too.
We gravitate toward simple interfaces, but Disk Scrubber's wee dialog might set the new standard: a three-item File menu, a drive selector, a status indicator, and a Start button. Despite its simple look, Disk Scrubber does offer options. And it does its job, and well.
MariusSoft's award-wining Disk Scrubber is free. It works in all versions of Windows up to Vista. It's updated frequently, and Microsoft claims that most programs that work in Vista will also work in Windows 7.
Publisher's Description
From MariusSoft:
Disk Scrubber allows you to truly erase removed files from your hard drive when you delete files or folders; the data is not initially removed from the hard disk. Instead, the space on the disk that was occupied by the deleted data is "deallocated." After it is deallocated, the space is available for use when new data is written to the disk. Until the space is overwritten, you can recover the deleted data by using a low-level disk editor or data-recovery software. By using the Disk Scrubber, you can ensure that delete data is written over and thus no longer recoverable by disk recovery software. This is a must when selling or donating your used hard drive.
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All versions:
2.0 starsout of 2 votes
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"This program simply does not work at all."
Version: Disk Scrubber 2.3
Pros
Absolutely nothing.
Cons
It is very nebulous loading. It takes a long time and does not tell you what it is doing. Finally I completed the set-up and ran it. I chose the drive letter that I want to scrub. I immediately get a pop-up window that says "Unhandled exception has occurred in your application . . . The system can not find the file specified." Huh? What does that mean? I click "Continue" but it does not do anything so I have to click "Quit". I try the set-up again and I have the option to "Repair" or "Remove" the MSDS. I click "Repair" and the program proceeds to do something and then declares the "Repair" done. I ran the program again but got the same result and same worthless pop-up message. The next time I ran the program I clicked "Remove" so it is now gone. And I only wasted two hours on this POS.
Summary
Do not waste your time with this junk.
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"Memory Hog"
Version: Disk Scrubber 1.2
Pros
It does what it says it will do.
Cons
I noticed my hard drive memory was used up to 30G that I can't account for since downloading this program. Had to delete it...to try to get my memory back.
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