[Burton_686]

Hi. I was wondering after you clear you recycle bin where does it all go?

[Advertisements]

Good question. Many people say it's gone forever, but not necessarily... If you have GoBack software like Nortoon GBack, then your file is still there, waiting for you to restore it that way. It will sit there for a while until it expires I suppose. Even then, some people say that you can still find files on a hard disk, even though they have been erased for months and months. It all comes down to who's looking for the information.

[Facedown98]

Good question. Many people say it's gone forever, but not necessarily... If you have GoBack software like Nortoon GBack, then your file is still there, waiting for you to restore it that way. It will sit there for a while until it expires I suppose. Even then, some people say that you can still find files on a hard disk, even though they have been erased for months and months. It all comes down to who's looking for the information.

[Burton_686]

k thanks. where would you find these files after you delet them after months and months with out using any restore programs

Edited by Burton_686, 28 June 2006 - 08:49 AM.

[BobWerner]

All items go into the preverbial bit bucket. AKA Cyberspace. They evaporate, disappear, vanish.

[Burton_686]

are you sure? cause what the guy wrote its pretty understanding

[Facedown98]

All items go into the preverbial bit bucket. AKA Cyberspace. They evaporate, disappear, vanish.

You would think so until the FBI decides to search your hard disk. I'm sure they could find a few thing that you thought were gone

[Burton_686]

true. but how often does that happen

[Facedown98]

Ah yes, but how often is not the issue here. The issue is that the files can still be recovered.

[dsenette]

how far into this bit of computer info do you actually wanna go?

[Major Payne]

Hi. I was wondering after you clear you recycle bin where does it all go?

More in depth info you can read:

1) Erase Internet Tracks

2) Microsoft's Protect Your PC

In time the data will be unrecoverable normaly once it has been overwritten by other files. That's why, if you want to recover files after a delete, time is of the essence as the possibility is there to have it corrupted by an overwrite. This is probably truer on drives with less space available than larger drives.

Ron

[BobWerner]

I just wanted to give out the "smart donkey" answer. Rather than go into FAT or NTFS or whatever file system you have to be using.

Yes, files, even after they've been deleted can be recovered. Like someone said, it all depends on time and the size of the drive.

In a FAT world, the first letter of the filename is replaced with a ? which tells the file system "hey, this file has been marked as deleted. This space can be reused."

There used to be, and probably still are programs floating out there that will let you hex edit the file and replace the ? with an actual letter to make the file usable again.

In an NTFS world things are a little different. There's a whole new file format and security here. I'll let someone else explain it.

[Major Payne]

Thanks, Bob, for the additional info. Rather then cover the NTFS file system in detail here, it actually has a web site!

NTFS.com: NTFS Basics

Ron