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SDelete hangs at 100%

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    Hi.

    Since the latest update of the Sysinternals Suite, when I run Sdelete (v 2.0) on my disk, it hangs at 100% and does not end (command is sdlete.exe -c -z- r <drive>; OS is Win10 Pro, current updates applied; no recent changes to other drivers or firmware). I have this issue on two machines and since i run SDelete from within a script, it stops my automation process dead since i have to manually end the process now.

    Any ideas on how to get this fixed?
    Sunday, July 17, 2016 12:44 AM
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    you can try and capture a process monitor log and see if it reveals something.
    Sunday, July 17, 2016 9:01 AM
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    Yes, I should have come to that conclusion myself ;)

    Process Monitor shows ongoing write-access to a temporary file ("c:\users\<name>\appdata\local\temp\sdeltemp1") with a steadily increasing offset.

    I suppose this is "new" behaviour of SDelete. It grabs free space with creating a temporary file and then works on that. Unfortunately though, that this leads to showing 100%-status for most of the processes runtime.

    I'll consider this closed with the comment "misleadingly shows 100%-status"
    Sunday, July 24, 2016 12:06 AM
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    Here's some objective test data comparing v1.61 and the newly released v2.0 of SDelete.

    ---

    Timer 1 on: 19:45:02

    SDelete -z E:

    SDelete - Secure Delete v1.61
    Copyright (C) 1999-2012 Mark Russinovich
    Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com

    SDelete is set for 1 pass.
    Free space cleaned on E:\
    1 drives zapped

    Timer 1 off: 19:46:28  Elapsed: 0:01:25.50

    ---

    Timer 1 on: 19:46:28

    SDelete64 -z E:

    SDelete v2.0 - Secure file delete
    Copyright (C) 1999-2016 Mark Russinovich
    Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com

    SDelete is set for 1 pass.
    Free space cleaned on E:\
    1 drive cleaned.

    Timer 1 off: 20:28:54  Elapsed: 0:42:25.89

    ---

    So yes the v2.0 version of SDelete doesn't "hang" (forever) at 100% it just does something else for 28x the time of v1.61.

    PS: E: is a flash drive (NTFS formatted) with 1.10GB of free space.

    Tuesday, August 2, 2016 6:42 AM
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    To add to this we use Sdelete during builds of our virtual machine templates.  On using v2.0 I gave up waiting for it to finish after 4 hours.  After reverting to v1.61 it completed in less than 10 minutes.  I think there might be an issue.
    Wednesday, August 3, 2016 6:32 AM
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    +1
    Saturday, August 13, 2016 2:57 AM
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    Something is up with SDelete 2.0..  I use it to zero the free space in a VM and it's VERY VERY slow compared to the older version.  What's the previous release?  1.6.1?  I need to find a copy...
    Monday, August 22, 2016 8:44 AM
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    I have the same problem with Sdelete on my SSD.
    The resource monitor showed v.2 writing the disk at approx 40Mb p/s
    while v.1.61 at 1,300 Mb p/s 

    SDelete v.2.0 is faulty (shows 100% all the time) and dead slow, don't use it.
    Google v.1.61 , it works just fine.
    Wednesday, August 24, 2016 9:06 AM
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    Same problem for me.
    About 15 MB/s zeroing our virtual disks with 2.0 instead of 150 MB/s with 1.66
    Monday, September 19, 2016 7:16 AM
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    I've also submitted this to Mark. He said he's going to look at it. So wait for a fix
    Monday, September 19, 2016 10:58 AM
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    i've v2 and after 3 hours It is still 100%
    what's name of the temporary file?
    Tuesday, October 18, 2016 3:10 AM
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    Hi,

    I am facing the same issue while building my virtualbox build using packer tool. Earlier it used to work fast but now it just hangs for ever at Sdelete command. Can you please tell me where can I check the version of sdelete command and how to replace it?
    at the command prompt it shows:

    virtualbox-iso: C:\Users\vagrant>cmd /c C:\Windows\Temp\sdelete.exe -q -z C:
        virtualbox-iso:
        virtualbox-iso: SDelete v2.0 - Secure file delete
        virtualbox-iso: Copyright (C) 1999-2016 Mark Russinovich
        virtualbox-iso: Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com
        virtualbox-iso:
        virtualbox-iso: SDelete is set for 1 pass.

    but there is no such application called sdelete at \windows\temp path. Or is it located internally in the virtual machine being built up? how can I replace it with older version.
    Please help, if you have been able to resolve this issue.

    thanks
    Friday, December 23, 2016 8:24 PM
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    Could you please make the previous version available for download until you solve this issue....please :-)
    Saturday, December 31, 2016 3:49 AM
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    Luckely I found version 1.61 in one of my old virtual machines.
    I uploaded to my web-server for others:
    http://www.wit.dk/temp/sdelete_1.61.0.0.exe

    Saturday, December 31, 2016 3:56 AM
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    I already wrote a mail to Mark, but I have no idea if he already started working on this issue.
    Saturday, January 7, 2017 4:33 AM
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    Used SDelete 2.0 (32-bit) on Windows 7 64-bit, to clear 4.2 GB empty space on a WD My Book Duo 16 TB over USB 3.0.

    D:\Download\SDelete>sdelete -c l:

    SDelete v2.0 - Secure file delete
    Copyright (C) 1999-2016 Mark Russinovich
    Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com

    SDelete is set for 1 pass.
    Cleaning free space on L:\: 100%^C


    Took about 28 hours to reach 100%. It remained at 100% for about about six hours until I Ctrl-C'ed out. Oddly, the noise level from the drive was greater throughout this 100% phase. There wasn't any hidden temp file left over.

    Not sure if this is of any relevance, but I'd previously interrupted it at around 10% with Ctrl-C as it was taking longer than anticipated, and didn't delete the temporary file (if there was one left over)
    Sunday, January 15, 2017 1:49 PM
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    I assume the reference to v1.66 above is a typo and the previous version was v1.61?
    Tuesday, January 17, 2017 10:03 AM
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    Has anyone heard any updates of getting a fixed version of SDelete 2.0 published, or getting 1.0 published officially while a fix is in progress? Sdelete is used in a lot of Packer workflows for building Windows boxes for Vagrant and other platforms. Having this broken is awfully inconvenient.

    David
    Monday, March 6, 2017 2:41 PM
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    Update: tried this on 26/06 and still having the same issues as described above. 
    It's a shame this doesn't get any attention while being reported several times.
    Monday, June 26, 2017 5:18 AM
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    I'm also experiencing this problem with SDelete v2.0 when clearing free space. Looking forward to the fix! Thank you!
    Thursday, October 5, 2017 5:53 AM
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    If you don't need secure delete functionality but just need to zero free space in a VM you can use this.
    Friday, October 6, 2017 9:03 AM
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    When I run command  "sdelete64.exe -z -nobanner E:" on 1Gb USB flash drive it goes from 0% to 100% in about 3 minutes and after that hangs at 100% for another 10 minutes.
    During both stages the disk is being actively used.
    It would be nice to get a correct process status.
    The "-nobanner" option is also not working - on a first run the program requires to accept EULA anyway.
    Saturday, November 4, 2017 4:32 AM
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    Hi all


    Since it seems there is not going to be a fix anytime soon (I say this since several people said they have asked and contacted the developer, and nothing happened),
    I would like to suggest a simpler idea:

    Can anyone who has the contact information of Mark Russinovich, contact him and ask him to put an official link for downloading v1.61 here on the website?


    From what everyone says, this version does not have the problem,
    so an official download source would be a great solution..


    This will really help anyone who is getting to this thread..
    Wednesday, November 15, 2017 9:22 PM
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    Until a fix is posted https://web.archive.org/web/20160606061205/https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/sdelete.aspx has version 1.61 from a site that many would consider reliable.
    Image already added
    Thursday, December 7, 2017 8:52 AM
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    Just curious, is this issue manifest for everyone, or does 2.0 work ok on some systems and/or drives?
    Saturday, December 23, 2017 3:28 AM
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    Question is: is it safe to cancel SDelete when it has reached 100%?
    In -z mode it seems to write to X:\SDELTEMP just fine.
    So I cancelled SDelete at 100% by pressing Ctrl+C.
    Looking at the disk with FTK Imager Lite, the [unallocated space] is filled with zeros.

    Wednesday, December 27, 2017 3:59 PM
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    Until a fix is posted https://web.archive.org/web/20160606061205/https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/sdelete.aspx has version 1.61 from a site that many would consider reliable.
    Image already added

    Thank you UncleT
    That's a terrific solution.

    It worked..
    Thumbs Up
    Wednesday, December 27, 2017 9:48 PM
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    BTW, can you guys recommend what Defrag tool you use in your Windows VMs?
    (not Windows' default one I hope, which is so bad)
    Thursday, December 28, 2017 2:28 AM
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    Small Update:
    I used Defraggler:
    https://www.piriform.com/defraggler/builds
    and got excellent results: 11.5GB turned to 4.7GB

    Note that there is a portable version, so no need to install anything..
    Friday, December 29, 2017 8:31 AM
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    BTW, can you guys recommend what Defrag tool you use in your Windows VMs?
    (not Windows' default one I hope, which is so bad)

    default tool is fine. all 3rd party tools are snakeoil, which improve nothing.
    Saturday, December 30, 2017 11:41 PM
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    default tool is fine. all 3rd party tools are snakeoil, which improve nothing.


    Obviously not true. Advanced defraggers have options to move files to a either the start or end of the drive and if the goal is to minimize the size of a virtual disk you want all files at one end before you zero the free space (if the virtual disk is also compressed because longer runs of zero blocks will compress better).

    This is also useful for real physical drivers. Stuffing large video files etc. at the end of the drive (the slow part of the drive) so the faster parts are free for other things.
    Sunday, December 31, 2017 8:23 PM
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    SDelete 2.01 (Jan 7th 2018) is out. I haven't had a chance to test it yet.

    I'd keep the 1.61 .exe's until you're sure this release works right.


    Wednesday, February 14, 2018 5:51 AM
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    Some objective test results for v2.01.

    [S: is a NTFS drive with 9.00GB free]

    Timer 1 on: 12:43:31

    SDelete - Secure Delete v1.61   [32-bit. No 64-bit version]
    Copyright (C) 1999-2012 Mark Russinovich
    Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com

    SDelete is set for 1 pass.
    Free space cleaned on S:\
    1 drives zapped

    Timer 1 off: 12:47:12  Elapsed: 0:03:40.76


    Timer 1 on: 12:47:12

    SDelete v2.01 - Secure file delete [32-bit.]
    Copyright (C) 1999-2018 Mark Russinovich
    Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com

    SDelete is set for 1 pass.
    Free space cleaned on S:\
    1 drive cleaned.
    Timer 1 off: 12:54:23  Elapsed: 0:07:11.15


    Timer 1 on: 12:54:23

    SDelete v2.01 - Secure file delete [64-bit.]
    Copyright (C) 1999-2018 Mark Russinovich
    Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com

    SDelete is set for 1 pass.
    Free space cleaned on S:\
    1 drive cleaned.
    Timer 1 off: 13:01:37  Elapsed: 0:07:13.93


    So v2.01 is about 2x slower at clearing free space than v1.61. It also "hangs" at 100% for some minutes. I'm sticking with v1.61. Wink

    Wednesday, February 14, 2018 12:08 PM
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    Looks like SDelete v2.02 solves all of this (released Nov/Dec 2018 by the looks of it).

    Not a Windows user but do have a Win 10 virtual machine and had the same issue as everyone here with SDelete 2.0 and 2.01.

    2.02 was really quick compared to previous versions (only on a 500GB virtual disk image mind) and no hanging on 100%.

    Might be a red herring but I do wonder if Storage sense could have had anything to do with the issues.  Not tried 2.02 with Storage sense (Settings > System > Storage) enabled yet but when I first ran 2.01 I had a notification informing me that Windows had automatically enabled this because it saw my HDD was reaching 100% capacity due to the nature of how SDelete works.  Could it have been trying to clear the disk by removing 'unwanted' temp files and interfering with SDelete completing its task?


    • Edited by Pedro Clemo Monday, February 11, 2019 2:51 PM Added more detail.
    Monday, February 11, 2019 2:49 PM
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