Files you delete, are NOT permanently Deleted!!

Dear Readers,

Scenario 1

So you had a file , named, lets say MY ACCOUNTS on your computer, after you finished working with it, you decided to save it on your flash disk and delete the file from your computer, so that it can not be found in your PC when someone is trying to snoop into your files. You delete the file from the computer and then empty your recycle bin. And say all done, " no one can see my accounts file on this computer",...right?.....WRONG!

Scenario 2

You sold your old computer or laptop to someone , you decided to format the computer and re install Windows , so its completely clean and no traces of your old documents and passwords. And you think that formatting and re installing of Windows removed traces of your documents and passwords and bank details...right??.....WRONG!

How is that possible....?? Delete means DELETE right?

Well yes Delete means Delete, but only Delete from your eyes. Not from the Hard Disk.

When you delete a file on your computer, it goes into recycle bin, and when you clean your recycle bin it is removed from the computer. That is the concept built into everyone's mind. But thats not what happens in reality. All computer data , files and folders, have a pointer system, sort of like a book library indexing. What Windows does is that it finds all the pointers from your files and indexes them , so they can be accessible to you whenever you call for a file. Now when you delete the file, Windows is only deleting the pointer from its index. Meaning the file is no longer available in Windows. It doesn't actually erase the file. All it does is flagging that part of the drive where the file was located, as being available for new data and removing the location of that data from the index directory. Until that region on the hard disk is overwritten with new data, the old data can be potentially be retrieved. CONFUSED?? Ok here is a simple example.

Imagine a book library. All books are indexed A-Z. And all book names are indexed on the reception computer as well. So whenever a reader wants to find a book say "You can Win" the computer will tell the reader the book is available in Y section of the library. But if the librarian deletes the entry on the computer for "You can Win", a reader will not see that name in the Index of the computer, and will think the Library does not have this book. While in reality , the book still exists on the Y shelf, only not visible on the Index.

So how are my files recovered?

Files are easily recovered using utilities that try to find un-indexed data or finding files that don't have pointers on the Hard disk. Until that part of the hard disk is re written by other data several times, files will be retrievable.

So how do i erase them permanently?

To my point exactly. To erase these files securely, you need keep writing and deleting files on your hard disk over and over. Which is really not possible with the time it takes. So there are a few free utilities that can do this, i will only mention one for now. Eraser. What Eraser does is that it writes that area of deleted data several times. So your file can never be retrieved. PLEASE BE VERY CAREFUL WITH THESE UTILITIES. Erasing the wrong files , and you will never retrieve your data again.

Good Day!