Ok I'm not exactly sure on this but here it goes. I download a video or file or program from say Limewire/Kazaa or any other search engine. I watch it or use it and now I want to get rid of it. I delete it, then go to my recycle bin and clear it. Is it gone ? I hear that it gets stored somewhere on your computer and is scrambled a bit, but it can be retreived if you have the right software. Is this true? I also hear that you can get a program to get rid of it entirely, no traces. Is this true? Just trying to educate myself. TX
Webroot has a Window Washer that has the option of shredding and writing a few times over anything you delete -- ! That is the only way to completely render a deleted file unreadable on the HD after a delete !
Whenever you store a file on your disk drive, an entry is made in the file allocation table that basically just "points" to the address on the disk where the file is. When you "delete" the file, this pointer is moved to your trash bin (if your operating system uses one). The data is still recorded on the disk in the same place, just the pointer has been moved from whatever directory it was in to the trash bin. When you "empty" the trash bin, this pointer is deleted. The original data still exists wherever it was on the disk, only the reference to where it was located in the file allocation table has been removed. This also "frees up" the location where that data was stored for future use. The next time you go to save a file, the operating system will see that space as available, and may use it, may not use it, or may use a portion of it, as required. With some software tools, you can find this data on the disk again, even if the "pointer" in the file allocation table is gone, and recover the data as long as nothing has been written over it yet. If you truly want to make sure it's really gone forever, then that address on the disk needs to be written over. Okay, that's what I remember from my computer science classes. Hope that helps.
Excellent explanation! I've done a bit of data recovery and even with the "Washer" programs traces are sometimes still detectable. The best thing I've seen is killdisk but it does exactly what it says.
O&O safeerase is a good program to delete things from your computer. It can delete files up to 35 times.
i use a application called hard disk scrubber, it overwrites your free space 3 times, or you can completely delete your whole hard drive. look for it in google, best think to do is start it before you go to bed, so its ready in the morning, depending on the drive's size though. you can find it here: http://www.summitcn.com/download.html
what i want to do is not erase, but read again the stuff i had deleted, i want to recover what i can. any programs to recover instead of overwritting????
I used to use Norton Utilities "unerase" program, back in the old "DOS" days. I'm not sure if they've upgraded the software to use in the new Windows OS environment.
@ tillo005 i wasn't sure i was responding to your quiry, sorry for the confusion, my post was initially intended to wet1234
