TribalDruid Posted January 26, 2011 Report Share Posted January 26, 2011 Hello and thank you for being here to respond.I have used µTorrent for a number of years. This evening I experienced a serious problem with this software that I want to relay. Hopefully I can come to some understanding and definitive closure on this issue. I will attempt to explain this as best as possible. I had somewhere in the range of 40 active torrents, both downloading and uploading.Coinciding these uploads/downloads, I was also cleaning my computer (deleting and moving files). I had an external HD plugged into my laptop. Many of these files are extremely sensitive. My µTorrent download and torrent folders are self contained within my main µTorrent folder under the subfolder 'Data'. I use portable µTorrent.In the process of discarding files, I deleted a folder containing personal photographs (after it had been transfered to an external HD). This folder was in a completely separate region of the hard drive from the µTorrent folder. These photographs have never been in the µTorrent folder. These photographs were and still are private. There is no intention whatsoever of sharing such photographs with the public. Yet somehow, because µTorrent was actively running, this is precisely what happened. Allow me to explain....After deleting the private folder, I chose to check on the current downloads. Some of the downloads contained folders with images. When I opened the target folders of the current downloads I was more than a little surprised. I was staring at images which had been contained in the folder that I had just deleted. Some of the images were still currently downloading and they were not completely formed. There were partially formed photos of my personal images. I was and still am completely stumped and baffled by this. I immediately canceled all torrents and exited µTorrent. After this, I reviewed a number of the target download folders and witnessed a slew of my personal photographs intermingled with images of what had been downloading.There is a high likelihood that a number of these photos were downloaded by peer users. What is this? How could such a thing happen? Has this been noted prior to my inquiry here? I'm seeking closure to this whole matter and am currently completely turned off from using any torrent software ever again. If this has already been covered in the forums than I do apologize. But, quite frankly, I just didn't feel motivated to comb through the forum as I feel this to be a pretty weighty issue.Again, I appreciate your time and attention here and I look forward to your response. I understand that this may not have been intentional on the part of µTorrent. That is why I chose to post this under "Found Bugs". In any event, I hope to come to a reasonable conclusion regarding this whole experience. Thank You. Healthiest Regards,Brad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ultima Posted January 26, 2011 Report Share Posted January 26, 2011 Preferences > Advanced > diskio.no_zero Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TribalDruid Posted January 26, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 26, 2011 Thanks for your quick response UltimaI just searched and read about 'diskio.no_zero' and I think I understand. Is this enabled by default?Since I didn't wipe the data, it was unfortunately pulled for file allocation. Is this correct? I can see that it clearly states that there is danger involved in having this enabled if data has not been wiped. I suppose this is how we learn :/ Now I know. Is it noticeably faster to skip the zero-filling process? If other peers were sharing the same downloads as me, what are the chances that they received some of these files?Thanks Ultima. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ultima Posted January 26, 2011 Report Share Posted January 26, 2011 µTorrent only seeds data it has successfully downloaded. It does not just blindly read data off disk and send it off, so there is no chance that other peers would have received this data.How much faster really depends mostly on your disk access speeds, but for larger torrents, it may be noticeable. Probably only on the order of seconds (or if it's horrendously large with a slow disk, minutes, but that's highly unlikely). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TribalDruid Posted January 26, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 26, 2011 Thanks Ultima,So essentially you're saying that the previously deleted photos I saw in the downloaded folder(s) were simply temporary placeholders until the full images had been allocated from the peers? Thanks in advance for bearing with me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ultima Posted January 26, 2011 Report Share Posted January 26, 2011 When Windows "deletes" files, it just removes references to the data from its index of files; it doesn't actually wipe the data off the disk (for performance reasons). When another file is allocated where the old file used to be (where its data still technically lives), it's up to the allocating application to wipe the disk. This feature (diskio.no_zero) throws that out and just ignores wiping, since it really shouldn't matter in the end after µTorrent downloads the entire torrent (the data will be overwritten anyway).µTorrent keeps track of which pieces it writes to disk, and if it hasn't written a piece to disk, then it won't touch that part of the file on disk either when uploading. The only way this could go wrong is if something screws with µTorrent's ability to properly keep track of written pieces (resume.dat corruption, for example). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.