How is this even possible???

[CF93]

Right I'm totally confused over this one.

Brand new 320Gb hard drive, partitioned into 50Gb system and the rest for storage, both FAT32, using some software I got in a pc mag recently.

Installed XP Pro, formatted the system partition to NTFS during the install. Installed some drivers to find they were corrupt and screwed the install, so thought I'd just start again.

Used FDISK to wipe the NTFS partition and create a new FAT32 one, and did a full unconditional format in DOS. Reinstalled XP and again reformated to NTFS during the install.

But to my horror, there were some files in the recycle bin...some files I deleted after the original install.

How on earth is that possible?? I mean, I'd done two formats, even on to a different file system! How could the damn thing retain files that I'd wiped over with a different file system, but then retain them when I reformatted back?? I mean, how? how??

Now I'm annoyed as who knows what else it's retained from the screwed install, I can't be confident in this install now.

So is there a way to secure-wipe or zero-fill just a single partition? The only software I've come across wants to zero fill the whole drive. I've got backups of everything, but just cba to recreate the storage partition from the backups.

TIA.

 

[CF93]

Sorry, maybe not making it clear. I won't be using FAT32 for the actual system once it's up and running.

I used FAT32 so that when I copied over the stuff for my storage partition it removed the old permissions from my old NTFS based system (for some reason some files had no permissions at all, some were limited to just me when they should be all users etc...) Basically I couldn't access all my mp3s and photos etc

The intention is to convert that back to NTFS once everything's running.

As for the system partition, I created it as FAT32 just cause that's what the program offered (I don't intend to keep it like that) and got the XP installer to convert it to NTFS. But the install was screwed by corrupt drivers, and the software I had wouldn't let me wipe the system partition since it was installed and running from that drive. I don't have any DOS-style partitioning apps that could wipe the system partition to let me start again, so I had to use FDISK.

Since FDISK only lets you create FAT32, that's what I did, and formatted it too, but then let the XP installer reformat to NTFS again. But it didn't seem to clear the files. That's what I don't understand - why would the files still be there??

 

[CF93]

stop using fat32 on large hdds.

use NTFS on both partitions and you wont get this problem.

As already said, I had to use FAT32 as that's all FDISK allows. Remember I'm setting up the partition from DOS, after that it will be formatted to NTFS during the XP install.

Are you reformatting both partitions or just the system partition? Try formatting both partitions. When installing, disconnect any/all other drives.

Just the system partition. There is only one drive in the pc, unless you include the DVDRW.


I just don't understand how it is possible to do two complete formats using two completely different file systems and the drive still to retain the files.

Think I'll just do a low level format using the manufacturers tools then start again.....

 

[CF93]

Ok, can we jsut get over the fact I used FAT32. As I already said, I used it to ensure the permissions on the files I had got wiped. It was never going to be a permanent solution. The idea was to put everything back to NTFS after. The permissions were screwed (or just completely missing) but the remaining permissions were not consistent across different files. As I had to move stuff to a new drive anyway it was a quick and easy way of sorting a couple of hundred Gb worth of files.

It was not just "some software" I used but something from Paragon (don't remember the name tho), not some no-name company. I put the fact I got it from a mag to highlight the fact I don't have expensive full version tools. We're not all individuals that have fresh systems/reinstalls every few months and need that kind of stuff a lot.

XP also installed fine - it was, as I said, corrupt drivers that caused the problem (and no, it wouldn't roll back either.)

I can't install XP and then drop in the second partition as I need to put the drives in my old system to get the "storage" partition data (they're sitting on a RAID array on a built in controller) and the old system won't boot with XP installed on both the RAID and the new drive (tried that in the part when building a system for mate to copy some stuff I had for him.) Hence setting up the drive before moving it to the new system to install XP.

Also the files that were still in the recylce bin - were never on the storage partition, only the system one. So my point was how could they still be there after the two reformats (regardless of file system!) since the reformat should have overwritten them? So what you're basically saying is anything in the recycle bin is duplicated into however many partitions are on the drive? Is that right?

 

[CF93]

Not exactly - the files themselves are not, the information about them is.

So had I tried to restore them (which I wouldn't as I didn't need them) I wouldn't have been able.

(also, XP was never installed on FAT32, as I got the installer to reformat to NTFS... )

 

[CF93]

as i said above, you don't need to convert to fat32 to reset file permissions, you can just take ownership of them

Did that. Twice. Didn't work. Some files were left with no permissions at all, some were only accessible by the admin account, some were "normal."

 

[CF93]

Probably cause you need to take ownership first and make sure subfolders and subfiles is ticked, then you apply the perms you want. If you're talking about the profiles folder then there are some strange perms on some folders which will need to be sorted out individually.

All of the files were created by the same account so that account would have been the owner. But something got screwed up so that even though I was the owner, the files had dodgy or missing permissions. Re-taking ownership didn't work, presumably because the account was already the owner, and nothing changed - still some permissions were messed up, some files had all permissions missing completely. Hence the need for something slightly different....

[edit] Was the "my docs" & subfolders, plus some others I'd created for shared storage, not profiles folders [/edit]

 

[CF93]

my documents is a profile folder

Either way it didn't work either on the my docs and its various subfolders, or on the "non-profile" folders elsewhere on the drive.