Disk cleanup is an inbuilt utility in Windows system. To some extent, it’s able to free up some spaces on the hard disk by cleaning useless files in PC. Some users fear that it’ll delete their useful files, causing data loss. This post will delve into this issue.
When your computer hard drive bursts at seams, you will absolutely take actions to free up more spaces on the drive. Undoubtedly, one of the most advisable ways is to clean up the useless files on the disk. You can select to manually do cleaning, or resorting to any tools. In Windows system, there is such a built-in utility – Disk Cleanup.
It can scan the specified drive partitions and offer you to select what types of files to be deleted. Generally, it can clean and delete temporary files, Recycle Bin files, old compressed files, downloaded programs and so on. Thus, in some degree, it is able to free up drive spaces. However, in this process, some users complain that it delete their essential files unknowingly. Thus, many are confused about whether it’s safe to run disk cleanup on their hard drives. Now, we’ll probe into this issue further.
In Normal Situations
To be honest, generally speaking, it is safe to free up drive spaces via disk cleanup tool. Firstly, before clearing files, it provides you to select which kinds of files that you want to delete. Secondly, it also offers some default files to be checked, which are suggested to be deleted. If you’re afraid of deleting useful files, you can simply keep the default checked options only.
Some Risks during Disk Cleanup
Nevertheless, there are still some risks in this course, such as the followings:
1. Important Windows ESD Installation Files
On Windows 10, when you running disk cleanup, you will discover the “Windows ESD Installation Files” option in the “Files to delete” list. Deleting it will free up a great number of hard drive spaces. But, you should never clear it in that it is very important. It is used for resetting Windows. If you delete it, you will lose the files essential for resetting PC.
2. Not Examine Recycle Bin
In addition, many users are prone to select to clearing Recycle Bin files. However, before enabling it, you should check your Recycle Bin in advance. Otherwise, you cannot ensure that there aren’t useful files in Recycle Bin. It may lead to data loss.
3. Computer Not Running Properly
If your computer is working improperly, such as hard drive errors or pretty slow hard drive, etc., disk cleanup tool will tend to fail halfway. For instance, it can get stuck suddenly or interrupted. In a nutshell, all of such failures can lead to data corruption or loss with ease.
Data Recovery Is Still Possible
Provided that disk cleanup delete the important files, your next step must be data recovery, such as Outlook recovery. Actually, when deleting a file, Windows won’t delete the data. It will simply erase file entries from the index table and mark that space as free. The data will be wiped until new data is written to that space. The same holds true for the deletion by disk cleanup. Therefore, data recovery after mistaken disk cleanup is still possible and much easier than what you think.
Author Introduction:
Shirley Zhang is a data recovery expert in DataNumen, Inc., which is the world leader in data recovery technologies, including recover Sql Server and outlook repair software products. For more information visit www.datanumen.com
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