{"id":1216,"date":"2011-04-07T10:10:33","date_gmt":"2011-04-07T14:10:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/?p=1216"},"modified":"2011-04-07T10:10:33","modified_gmt":"2011-04-07T14:10:33","slug":"deleted-files-gone-but-not-forgotten","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/deleted-files-gone-but-not-forgotten\/","title":{"rendered":"Deleted files – gone but not forgotten"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"When you “delete” files they’re not really deleted and they’re \t\tnot taking up space either. Think of your hard drive as a chalk board. \t\tWhen you erase a chalk board, you can’t see what you erased (very well) \t\tbut somewhere in the slate of the chalk board is everything you’ve ever \t\twritten on it. But still you can write something new on it. So it is \t\twith your hard drive.<\/p>\n

When you “delete” a file, you’re telling Windows that you don’t want \t\tthat file anymore and telling Windows to use the space that file once \t\toccupied for something else. So Windows shows the space once occupied by \t\tthat file as “available” so you can install a new program or use the \t\tspace that whatever you deleted was occupying for something new. <\/span><\/p>\n

But, \t\tway down deep on the magnetic surface of your hard drive the file that \t\tyou deleted is still there. That’s how the FBI and other authorities \t\tgather evidence against criminals who think by deleting or formatting \t\ttheir hard drives they can erase all the incriminating evidence it might \t\thave once contained. But there is software available that can capture \t\tthe faintest particles of deleted files and restore them. There is \t\thardware available that can even extract more data from “formatted” hard \t\tdrives. In fact most “formatted” hard drives can be completely restored. \t\tThe software and hardware that can do this is very expensive for the \t\tmost part. But you can find programs to download (some free) that can \t\teasily “undelete” a freshly deleted file.<\/p>\n

The only way to completely remove data from your hard drive is by \t\t“erasing”. Erasing is a very misleading term. If you want to be sure \t\tthat deleted data can never be recovered from you hard drive you need to \t\tuse a program that replaces the deleted data with gibberish. An “eraser” \t\tprogram like “Eraser<\/a>” replaces \t\t“free space” created when you delete files by overwriting it many, many, \t\ttimes with unintelligible data (usually random sequences of numbers, \t\tletters, and symbols). Some good eraser programs may overwrite it \t\thundreds of times to make recovery impossible or nearly impossible.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When you “delete” files they’re not really deleted and they’re not taking up space either. Think of your hard drive as a chalk board. When you erase a chalk board, you can’t see what you erased (very well) but somewhere in the slate of the chalk board is everything you’ve ever written on it. But still you can\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[660,818,820,819],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1216"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1219,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1216\/revisions\/1219"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}