Is it true that nothing is really erased off your Harddrive even though you cleared your recycle bin?

Question

If so, why is this possible?
I also found file recovery software online, but does it really work, and which is the best and cheapest? Also, is there a way to clean your Harddrive completly if the first question is true.

Answer 1

This is true.

How is it possible. Think of it this way. You know the "index" at the FRONT of each book you read that tells where everything is? The computer has one of thse (well, something similar in nature). When it deletes a file, what it is doing is going to the "Index" and remove "where the file was located" from the Index Page so that the file will no longer be able to be "found." The program is now "GONE." To "re-find" the file, you need another program that located on the harddrive that program and "rewrite" the index file.

Hope that helps.

That's why its so important when you "really want to delete something" to get a program that writes over the ACTUAL PROGRAM FILES with Binary 0's and 1's. You need to re-write OVER the files with 0's and 1's at least 7 times before the Government Forensic Devices are UNABLE to recover information from the harddrive!!!

Answer 2

When you move something into the recycle bin the information stays on the harddrive, your computer just forgets how to find it so it doesn't show up any more. Those recovery programs do work for that reason

As you use your computer and write more stuff to your harddrive eventually the old deleted files get written over and end up being unrecoverable, at least to the general consumer.

There are commercial products to buy that can completely clean your harddrive buy writing random data over the whole thing. Just do a google search.

Answer 3

When you "erase" something from your hard drive, you're not actually deleting any information. Instead, you're instructing the operating system that the space currently being used by whatever file(s) you're "deleting" is now available to be written over...but there's no guarantee when this will happen.

There are commercial programs on the market which will not only delete the files for you, but will also instruct the computer to write meaningless junk over those sectors of the disc which were recently "erased" - thereby obliterating the previous information.

Ultimately, if you're needing to truly - once and for all - destroy info on a disc, then a magnetic field is required. Applying a strong enough magnetic field to a hard drive will wipe the memory completely - and at this point I don't know of any tech wizard who can retrieve data once *that* has been done.

Answer 4

It depends on how long ago you erased it and how much data you've put on the hard drive since erasing it. When you erase something, you're telling the computer to designate that part of the hard drive as writable. But if nothing has been written over that part of the hard drive, it is possible to recover it. There are programs that will permanently erase something from your hard drive to the point where even the NSA wouldn't be able to retrieve it. I forget the names of the software but you could probably find it if you searched.

Answer 5

that is true.

The only program that I have found that will help alleviate this problem is PGP (pretty good privacy)

It has an option to "wipe" the selected area of disk that was previously used by a file, overwriting "1's" and "0's" over, and over in that area, essentially making it useless if you ever want to retrieve any information from that area.... all that recycle bin does, is delete the path to the file... it is actually still there, and will be gone after something else is saved in that place.

PGP used to be free, but I do not know about now.

Answer 6

That is true. The only way to ensure a wiped drive that is unrecoverable is to use a Guutmann based wiping software that writes over the free space on your hard drive 35 times with random number 0 and 1's.

Answer 7

It is very true, anything you've ever typed, said, etc on the computer stays on the computer forever. That's why even though old computers when you delete stuff off of them they still aren't as fast as when you first bought them because there is still a lot of stuff that you don't know about on there. I don't know of any program that can completely erase the hard drive.

Answer 8

I'm not very computer literate and know nothing about recovery software. However, it's my understanding that when something is deleted, it's compressed and the space it's on in the hard drive is recoded so it can be reused.

Answer 9

go to frys. The best computer store in the world. Every computer geeks fantasy Island.Its awesome and super cheap. Oh yeah and yup its true. You do need a special hard drive for that crqp

Answer 10

I am interested to know this too. I know there is something called "forensic hard drive recovery" where they can recover almost everything ever entered into a PC.