Re: Does defrag erase all trace of deleted files?
- From: "Ken Blake, MVP" <kblake@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2008 11:44:36 -0700
On Sun, 20 Jul 2008 11:30:21 -0500, Jackson <jacXkdinsss@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
If I send a file to the recycle bin and later delete it from
the recycle bin and then, still later, defrag the disk, is
it possible that the file could still be undeleted and read?
Yes.
"Deleting" a file doesn't actually delete it; it just marks the space
as available to be used. There are third-party programs that can
sometimes recover deleted files. The problem is that the space used by
the file is likely to become overwritten very quickly, and this makes
the file unrecoverable.
So your chances of successfully recovering this file are decent if you
try recovering it immediately after deleting it, and rapidly go
downhill from there. If you've been using the computer since then (for
example to write this question and read this answer), your chances are
probably very poor by now.
But if the file is important enough, it's worth a try anyway. Stop
using the computer in question immediately, if you haven't done so
already. Download an undelete program (here's one:
http://www3.telus.net/mikebike/RESTORATION.html but there are several
others to choose from; do a Google search) on a friend's computer and
bring it to yours on a floppy to try.
If this fails, your only other recourse is to take the drive to a
professional file recovery company. This kind of service is very
expensive and may or may not work in your case.
--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience
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- Does defrag erase all trace of deleted files?
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