Re: Permanent Deletion
- From: "Ken Blake, MVP" <kblake@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2005 09:16:34 -0700
Funky One wrote:
> How do I permanently delete files?
>
> Yes, I know about clearing out the recycle bin, but I am under the
> belief that the "erased file" still exists on the hard drive so that
> someone else can access that file later on.
"Deleting" a file (whether from the recycle bin or directly if you bypass
the recycle bin) 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. However the space used by the file is likely to
become overwritten very quickly, and this makes the file unrecoverable (or
at least very difficult to recover).
Professional file recovery services can sometimes recover even overwritten
files, but their services are expensive. Most people don't need to wory
about this. Worst case, even if your computer gets stolen, it's highly
unlikely that the thief would pay their kind of prices on the off chance
there might be something of value there. Even if the file had *not* been
overwritten, it's unlikely that a thief would go to the trouble of trying to
undelete files (or even know how). Although there are third-party programs
you can use to overwrite deleted files, even they are't perfect; for that
reason the US government physically destroys drives containing really
sensitive data, rather than relying on such overwriting programs. So my
advice is not to worry about this.
On the other hand, if you're an international spy... ;-)
--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
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