trying to use G4L's utility zerotool on my win10 partition sda3 w/UEFI boot using g4l v0.66a and booted as UEFI w/no problem - trying to use its zerotool and it comes up with:
Progress
/bin/g4l: line 132: 0bits: Read-only file system
ncftpstatus: OK
...but nothing happens :-\
does the zerotool not work on my win10 partition?
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
The zero tool should work fine, but it appear the partition is being mounted as read-only for some reason? Could be it wasn't closed properly, or has some kind of special setting.
What does sfdisk -l /dev/sda show for it and other partitions.
Could see fsck -f /dev/sda3 shows
or ntfsck /dev/sda3
Would also be interest in how big the partition is? If not to large, it might not save much space.
Don't have a system handy with windows 10 or 11 with UEFI setup.
Also, not 0.67 is out, and already working on 0.68.
0.67 is based on Fedora 40
0.68 is based on Fedora 41.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
is there a way to get windows cipher.exe to just write the zero's and not the full:
once with a series of 0's (zero)
once with a series of 255's
once with a series of random numbers
just want the deleted files space 'emptied', not overwritten to prevent recovery...
sfdisk -l /dev/sda shows: sda1 is EFI system, sda2 is microsoft reserved, sda3 is microsoft basic data, and sda4 is windows recovery environment
ntfsck /dev/sda3 says command not found
fsck -f /dev/sda3 - not willing to use this - seems dangerous...
as far as special settings - could TPM be messing with things?
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Could the partition be encrypted or have bitlocker??
If so, that would be an issue. The is a standalone simple c program
lblank7.exe that is in the cd or usb of g4l. It just creates a number of files that blanks space until disk is full, and then it erases them.
Would have to open a command window and run the program to clear all unused space.
Have seen some messages that found they had bitlocker on systems, and didn't know it. Some would have problems with the grub menu booting with bitlocker set.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
OK - so, we're talking about a single OS laptop running Win10, not linux, so no grub...
My WIN10 sez bitlocker is OFF...
can I just run lblank7 that is in the cd of my g4l (copy it to another usb that WIN10 can see) while in windows via it's command prompt? There's lblank7 and lblank7_64 - neither one has '.exe' after it... there's a 'blank6.exe' on it...
Last edit: Blackstone 2025-03-26
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
The exe program sould work from command prompt. Probable best to open it with admin access, since some space might be used by reserved. Not on what encryption option might have. But if trying to mount the partition results in it being flagged as read-only, something must be going on.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Downloaded iso for v67, and on it was the '.exe' version of lblank7 - put the entire 'other' directory on my WIN10 laptop, ran lblank7.exe as admin and it zeroed-out the drive's unallocated space (awesome).
It's a 300Gb HD w/58Gb data
Imaging it BEFORE zeroing gave me a 'compressed' lzop file 240Gb
AFTER zeroing re-imaged it gave me lzop file 46Gb...
BIG difference was due to the drive had WIN7 on it taking up 276Gb (plus 'erased' crap) of the 300Gb drive, then installed WIN10 over it (total wipe - saved nothing) gave me the 58Gb data, but all the 'erased' junk from the previous system pretty much had it filled w/'erased' useless stuff ;-)
...VERY happy camper - Thanks Michael, you're a dream!
Jaimie
Last edit: Blackstone 2025-03-26
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Recall a very long time ago, Did an install of Fedora Core 3, (current version is 41) on an 80G drive that had had windos 95 I believe. Did an image and it created a 24G image. Then run the clean on disk, and redid image and it was only just over 2G. So clearing out the unused sectors makes a huge difference. You can also try the NTFSCLONE option. It only backs up used data on NTFS partition, but is faster than doing a bit level copy. Only issue is that it only has the partition, so restoring woudl require manually created the disk partition setup, and boot loader. I would usually, do a bit level backup and save that. Then to NTFSCLONE images over time. Then if disk crash, one would restore the bit level image first. Then only need to restore the latest NTFSCLONE.
In only lab, the bit level backup took about twice as long as an NTFSCLONE image, though size was about same if cleaned. Bit level does have to read every sector, and compress it that takes time.
But generally, one runs backup, and only need to wait for it to finish, so time might not be an important issue.
Glad it worked out. Would still be interesting to figure why the Windows Partition is mounting as read-only. Thanks for replies.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
trying to use G4L's utility zerotool on my win10 partition sda3 w/UEFI boot using g4l v0.66a and booted as UEFI w/no problem - trying to use its zerotool and it comes up with:
Progress
/bin/g4l: line 132: 0bits: Read-only file system
ncftpstatus: OK
...but nothing happens :-\
does the zerotool not work on my win10 partition?
The zero tool should work fine, but it appear the partition is being mounted as read-only for some reason? Could be it wasn't closed properly, or has some kind of special setting.
What does sfdisk -l /dev/sda show for it and other partitions.
Could see fsck -f /dev/sda3 shows
or ntfsck /dev/sda3
Would also be interest in how big the partition is? If not to large, it might not save much space.
Don't have a system handy with windows 10 or 11 with UEFI setup.
Also, not 0.67 is out, and already working on 0.68.
0.67 is based on Fedora 40
0.68 is based on Fedora 41.
is there a way to get windows cipher.exe to just write the zero's and not the full:
once with a series of 0's (zero)
once with a series of 255's
once with a series of random numbers
just want the deleted files space 'emptied', not overwritten to prevent recovery...
sfdisk -l /dev/sda shows: sda1 is EFI system, sda2 is microsoft reserved, sda3 is microsoft basic data, and sda4 is windows recovery environment
ntfsck /dev/sda3 says command not found
fsck -f /dev/sda3 - not willing to use this - seems dangerous...
as far as special settings - could TPM be messing with things?
Could the partition be encrypted or have bitlocker??
If so, that would be an issue. The is a standalone simple c program
lblank7.exe that is in the cd or usb of g4l. It just creates a number of files that blanks space until disk is full, and then it erases them.
Would have to open a command window and run the program to clear all unused space.
Have seen some messages that found they had bitlocker on systems, and didn't know it. Some would have problems with the grub menu booting with bitlocker set.
OK - so, we're talking about a single OS laptop running Win10, not linux, so no grub...
My WIN10 sez bitlocker is OFF...
can I just run lblank7 that is in the cd of my g4l (copy it to another usb that WIN10 can see) while in windows via it's command prompt? There's lblank7 and lblank7_64 - neither one has '.exe' after it... there's a 'blank6.exe' on it...
Last edit: Blackstone 2025-03-26
The exe program sould work from command prompt. Probable best to open it with admin access, since some space might be used by reserved. Not on what encryption option might have. But if trying to mount the partition results in it being flagged as read-only, something must be going on.
Downloaded iso for v67, and on it was the '.exe' version of lblank7 - put the entire 'other' directory on my WIN10 laptop, ran lblank7.exe as admin and it zeroed-out the drive's unallocated space (awesome).
It's a 300Gb HD w/58Gb data
Imaging it BEFORE zeroing gave me a 'compressed' lzop file 240Gb
AFTER zeroing re-imaged it gave me lzop file 46Gb...
BIG difference was due to the drive had WIN7 on it taking up 276Gb (plus 'erased' crap) of the 300Gb drive, then installed WIN10 over it (total wipe - saved nothing) gave me the 58Gb data, but all the 'erased' junk from the previous system pretty much had it filled w/'erased' useless stuff ;-)
...VERY happy camper - Thanks Michael, you're a dream!
Jaimie
Last edit: Blackstone 2025-03-26
Recall a very long time ago, Did an install of Fedora Core 3, (current version is 41) on an 80G drive that had had windos 95 I believe. Did an image and it created a 24G image. Then run the clean on disk, and redid image and it was only just over 2G. So clearing out the unused sectors makes a huge difference. You can also try the NTFSCLONE option. It only backs up used data on NTFS partition, but is faster than doing a bit level copy. Only issue is that it only has the partition, so restoring woudl require manually created the disk partition setup, and boot loader. I would usually, do a bit level backup and save that. Then to NTFSCLONE images over time. Then if disk crash, one would restore the bit level image first. Then only need to restore the latest NTFSCLONE.
In only lab, the bit level backup took about twice as long as an NTFSCLONE image, though size was about same if cleaned. Bit level does have to read every sector, and compress it that takes time.
But generally, one runs backup, and only need to wait for it to finish, so time might not be an important issue.
Glad it worked out. Would still be interesting to figure why the Windows Partition is mounting as read-only. Thanks for replies.
I've used G4L for MANY years to do a monthly bare metal backup of the
drive in a Windows machine. Before running it, I run:
SDelete -c -z c:
to zero out free space.
Harold
https://w6iwi.org
--
Not sent from an iPhone.