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Re: Deleting files

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On Thu, 17 Jul 2014, Peter Percival wrote:

> It is my belief (and you may be quite sure I know absolutely nothing about 
> the matter) that when I delete a file under Windows 7 what actually happens 
> is that the space used by the file is marked as available for new file 
> creation.  So the supposedly deleted file might hang around for sometime 
> before it gets written over; and even then it might be readable because some 
> residual magnetism (? or something) remains on the disk which can be read by 
> specialised hardware or software.
>
Yes, this happens, but if you are making lots of saves, chances are the 
space will get reused fairly fast.

I remember scrambling some floppy disks, wiping out the FAT table. 
(The FAT is where the location of the starts of files is kept.) And it 
wsa a big drag to resurrect those files.  They were't necessarily in 
sequential order, so even when you found the starting point, you might 
have to leap around.  It's been a long time, most of what I remember about 
that is that it had to be pretty important to follow through on.  I dont' 
think I ever did bother resurrecting any files, too much trouble.

So if you're worried that someone might get ahold of your hard drive and 
find deleted files, that's less likely the longer you keep using that 
drive. And for someone to go to the trouble of finding deleted files, 
there has to be some incentive to do so.  Why bother with the hard drive 
of John Q. Random?  Might as well wait and find a hard drive tossed out by 
royalty or someone who might have stuff worth knowing about.

There's always a risk, but it diminishes fast.  IN everyday use, unless 
you were doing something illegal, deleted files shouldn't be an issue. 
Getting rid of the hard drive probably is worth some effort to make sure 
things are deleted, but even then there are more steps that can be taken 
if someone knows the information is worth it, while without any value 
placed on the information, nobody will bother unless they are just 
practicing.

    Michael

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Thread

Deleting files Peter Percival <peterxpercival@hotmail.com> - 2014-07-17 13:55 +0100
  Re: Deleting files Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2014-07-17 14:28 +0000
  Re: Deleting files scott@alfter.diespammersdie.us (Scott Alfter) - 2014-07-17 14:30 +0000
    Re: Deleting files Peter Percival <peterxpercival@hotmail.com> - 2014-07-17 18:09 +0100
  Re: Deleting files Adrian C <email@here.invalid> - 2014-07-17 15:30 +0100
  Re: Deleting files Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2014-07-17 16:12 +0000
    Re: Deleting files Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> - 2014-07-17 17:58 +0100
      Re: Deleting files Richard Kettlewell <rjk@greenend.org.uk> - 2014-07-17 20:14 +0100
    Re: Deleting files Dario Niedermann <dnied@tiscali.it> - 2014-07-22 00:10 +0200
  Re: Deleting files Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2014-07-17 17:28 +0100
  Re: Deleting files Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2014-07-17 14:01 -0400
    Re: Deleting files Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> - 2014-07-17 19:04 +0100
  Re: Deleting files Peter Mc Donough <mcd-mail-lists@gmx.net> - 2014-07-17 21:12 +0200
    Re: Deleting files Peter Percival <peterxpercival@hotmail.com> - 2014-07-18 11:41 +0100
      Re: Deleting files Peter Mc Donough <mcd-mail-lists@gmx.net> - 2014-07-18 13:36 +0200

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