Deleted Permanently?

Last month, I had to transfer stuff to my laptop as my hard disk failed. In a bid to create space, I deleted some files that I needed later. After furiously searching for ways to get those files back, I found a software called Recuva. Recuva helps recover permanently deleted file on PC. But how is this possible? Are permanently deleted files stored somewhere? Today’s question:

Where Do Permanently Deleted Files Go in the Computer?

If you have a HDD (Hard Disk Drive), permanent deletion of files doesn’t really delete the files. Deleting a file generally removes the pointer to the files and marks the sectors containing the file’s data available for reuse. Other programs and processes then overwrite on the sectors where the data is stored.
Thus, it is possible to recover those files. To enhance your recovery chances, when you realise that you have deleted something important, stop opening new applications/files and shutting down or starting up the PC. Use the recovery softwares available and then find your lost and deleted files.

The case for a SSD (Solid State Drive) is different. SSDs have a TRIM command which HDDs lack. The TRIM command immediately erases the blocks of data from which the user deletes files. This happens to improve the performance of the SSD. Beware of permanently deleting files on a SSD.

In some cases, we need to erase contents of a disk so that they won’t be accessed or misused in the future. This can be done by shredding a file. A shredder is a program that deletes the pointer to a file and then fills the sectors of the hard disk with junk data. Here is a link to some file deletion softwares that perform such “secure wipes”.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t recover some of the files due to overwriting. But I got most of them!