16th February 2006, 8:23 PM
Exactly.
Here is the thing, lazy I may have misunderstood your first post, but you certainly misunderstood mine, because what you said is VERY close to correct and almost exactly what I was trying to say.
Here's a quote from Howstuffworks.
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/question578.htm
This makes it all very clear. However, I must add to that what Weltall just said. That is very accurate. The thing is, it can eventually be fully deleted, it'll just take a lot of overwriting. The only real important thing is to get the trace that is left so low that the hard drive just can't detect it any more. That's when it takes forensic experts in crime labs to try and find a trace. It is as hard as seeing a planet next to a star from a great distance :D, and the smaller the trace the harder it is, but it can be detected to pretty low levels.
My point is simply that your first post wasn't an accurate description of what happens to a file.
Here is the thing, lazy I may have misunderstood your first post, but you certainly misunderstood mine, because what you said is VERY close to correct and almost exactly what I was trying to say.
Here's a quote from Howstuffworks.
Quote:A common misconception is that the data is actually removed from the hard drive (erased) when you delete a file. Any time that a file is deleted on a hard drive, it is not erased. Instead, the tiny bit of information that points to the location of the file on the hard drive is erased. This pointer, along with other pointers for every folder and file on the hard drive, is saved in a section near the beginning of the hard drive and is used by the operating system to compile the directory tree structure. By erasing the pointer file, the actual file becomes invisible to the operating system. Eventually, the hard drive will write new data over the area where the old file is located.
There are several utilities that you can find on the Internet that allow you to recover "deleted" files. What these utilities do is search for data on the hard drive that does not have corresponding pointer information and present you with a list of these files. Your chances of fully recovering a file diminish the longer you wait after you deleted the file since the probability that the file has been overwritten increases. Sometimes you can recover portions of a file that has not been completely overwritten.
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/question578.htm
This makes it all very clear. However, I must add to that what Weltall just said. That is very accurate. The thing is, it can eventually be fully deleted, it'll just take a lot of overwriting. The only real important thing is to get the trace that is left so low that the hard drive just can't detect it any more. That's when it takes forensic experts in crime labs to try and find a trace. It is as hard as seeing a planet next to a star from a great distance :D, and the smaller the trace the harder it is, but it can be detected to pretty low levels.
My point is simply that your first post wasn't an accurate description of what happens to a file.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)