I heard that just because you empty the recycler bin, it doesn't mean the file is deleted from your pc..?

Question

or hard drive, is that true? how do you delete file or picture permanently from my hard drive?

Answer 1

Most Operating Systems such as Windows 95, 98, ME, and XP are designed to be efficient for the most part. Microsoft understands that when someone deletes something they don't want to wait a long time while the computer dedicates time to overwrite every byte of the data you wish to delete. Instead the operating system only deletes whats called a pointer to the data. Its like removing a card that refers to a book from the index, but leaving the book on the shelf. In the case of computers, the Operating System is no longer reserving or monitoring that data and considers it empty space. At some point in time the data will be overwritten with something else. Meanwhile, it is very possible for someone to retrieve data that is not wiped clean from your hard drive if you or someone else wanted to. The government realized this potential leak in Operating Systems and developed a standard to go by that many others use in their programs that are designed to "Wipe" data from the drives. What these programs basically do is write 0's and 1's to the location where the data was to efficiently prevent it from being read. Some "Wipe" programs don't do a good job and leave what can be referred to as a "Ghost" on the hard drive. This is leftover magnetic traces of data that were not completely removed and is able to be read and then, depending on how much is available of the ghost, the rest of the data can be reconstructed with some degree of accuracy.

For the most part most of us regular folks don't need to worry about "Wiping" our data but some times you just want to make sure it is gone and not able to be recovered. I do believe that this program http://www.download.com/Eraser/3000-2092_4-10231813.html?tag=lst-0-7 is capable of wiping empty space of your hard drive, if not then you may want to try another program. I do know that once this program is installed all you have to do to securely delete something is to right click on it and then choose the delete option placed in the menu by Eraser.

Here are more programs that are DOD 5220.22-M compliant: http://www.sharewareconnection.com/titles/dod-5220-22-m.htm
Yes, killdisk is on the list for compliance.

Answer 2

True. The operating sytem just marks that part of the hard drive as an area it can overwrite. The deleted file can hang around for a long time. I'm sure a google search for permantly deleting a file would give you some free stuff.

Answer 3

Once emptied from your recycle bin, the area on the disk where the deleted file is can now be written over at any time, and once that happens the file is pretty hard to recover. Although it can be done, it would take a lot of effort to get that file back, very expensive.

Answer 4

they at the instant are not likely deleted or erased. The flags get knocked down. The information are nevertheless there, yet with out the flags as markers the computing gadget won't be able to discover them. the only thank you to particularly get rid of a document is to re-write over it and obliterate the concepts. The recycle bin is actual yet another folder the place all your 'deleted' information are saved in case you ever have a transformation of concepts and desire to restoration them. once you empty the recycle bin, you "delete" them, yet this in trouble-free terms knocks the document markers down, it would not erase the concepts. immediately once you delete a document it continues to be on the force, the computing gadget in basic terms won't be able to see it any further and the gap is freed up so the computing gadget can re-write over it.

Answer 5

that is correct!
when you empty your recycle bin it does not completely remove the file from the hard drive it only "forgets" about the file and were the file is!
then in the future when your downloading a movie it may wright over the "deleted" file therefor rendering it on recoverable!

Answer 6

That is true. Its why it is so easy for government and police agencies to "recover" hard drive information.

think of your hd as a notebook. You always have a certain amount of space on your hard drive once its formatted. The computer will write in this space, and what you delete is not "removed" from the notebooks pages and replaced with equivalent space. It would be more accurate to think of as the computer marking that space to be written over. In effect, you can't access it anymore, but it is still there until you write something onto the harddrive and the computer writes OVER the old data.

To think of the notebook situation, it would be like this. Say you write something on page one, and decide later you don't want it, when youre already on page 50. It's quicker for the computer to access the initial parts of the drive, so when you want to write page 51, it would be the equivalent of going back to page one (where you've marked it for deletion) and whiting out the page or writing over the old information with the new.

This is why true data erasers write OVER the old spaces where the data was, several times, to ensure that no old/original data still exists, but is instead filled with random junk. Most hackers, pedophiles, or other coputer criminals dont have time or the means to do this, but the point is: there is no way of truly erasing a hard drive or volume--short of destroying it or writing over it with new data.

Answer 7

that's truely true ...
When u delete a file the normal way .. it just get removed from the Windows File Sytem table .. but the content remains in the hard drive and can be recovered using special software programs ..

However, the US department of defense has got a way to delete the file permanently and most of the file "Shreders" use this technique .. TuneUp Utilites use it in its file shreder tool ..

Answer 8

Correct, it is renamed so it can't be easily found. The only way the picture is deleted is the space it was using on the hard drive is overwritten by say something else, a new document or picture. It can happen over time, or you can download programs that will overwrite the free space on the hard drive (where the supposed deleted items lives) several times, making them unrecoverable. Go to www.nonags.com, they have free secure erase programs. Chow

Answer 9

Correct, the ONLY way to "permanently remove" a file from the drive is to use a data scrubber that will overwrite that disc area repeatedly.

Google will find you one.

"Normal" deletion is simply a removal of the File Allocation Table (FAT) entry that tells the machine where on the drive the file is stored.

Answer 10

They mean it's not immediately deleted. The file space on your HD is flagged to be overwritten. If you accidentally delete something, it remains on your HD for a few hours until it is overwritten. But it won't show up on your computer during that time, so it is essentially gone.