What Happens to Deleted Data as Fast As Possible
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2015-05-07
·
759 words · ~3 min read
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in life you purchase your electronics your groceries your clothing whatever
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else you need you take off the packaging you throw it in the trash can and once a
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week someone comes to take it all away it's like magic once it's gone you never
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have to worry about it again unfortunately for us the same cannot be
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said for deleting files on a computer storage drive for one thing usually
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deleting a file just moves it to the recycle bin which has no sanitation
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technician who comes and removes it every week it's simply a different
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folder location where files are stored indefinitely the file is still there and
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anyone with access to your computer can find them
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silly Linus once it's in the bin i can just
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empty the whole thing with one click and my computer tells me hey this is a
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permanent change and that file will no longer be accessible on your computer once you do that and you would be
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correct mostly the file is no longer easily accessible on your computer but
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there is a huge difference between whether a file is easily accessible and
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whether it has actually been removed on
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both magnetic and solid-state drives the bits of data that make up your photos
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music tax records and whatever else are naturally kind of scattered around and
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the way your operating system knows where to find all the pieces is on ntfs
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formatted drives anyway through the reference to it in the master file table
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so back to deleting stuff removing a file from the recycle bin only removes
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the master file table reference that points to the pieces that make up that
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file puzzle and registers the space that
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it used to take up as empty this gives the operating system permission to go
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right over it but that does not mean that right after you clean out your
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recycle bin the file is gone not by a
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long shot in fact there are many programs that are dedicated to
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reconstructing deleted files some of which can do so even after a drive has
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been reformatted and using those programs right away like right after an
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accidental deletion or reformat before lots of the data has been gradually
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overwritten has saved many a person's bacon from costly or upsetting loss of
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data but sometimes you want to get rid of files permanently from a storage
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drive like if you were going to sell it or donate it in that case how do you do
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it well there are a few tried and true methods that we'll highlight today the
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first one is to delete all the data on the drive then fill it up to capacity
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with new random data over and over again
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this method really wipes your whole drives make sure you have any important
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family pictures transferred to a new drive before you go ahead and do that
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the second is physical destruction of the drive
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both fun and effective but obviously you won't be able to donate that drive
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that's more for if there's very sensitive data on it that you just need
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to get rid of speaking of things that are fun and
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effective con i'm sorry i mean uh today's sponsor fractal design which
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okay well let's see how this goes so we're here in the park where
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apparently today's whoa today's humiliating thing is for me to be spun
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products but basically the point is i'm supposed to spend time like super dizzy
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and then run through a gauntlet of my co-workers who are all armed with
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hopefully not spikes because they could have changed the pillows out for anything while i've been doing this what
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do you think am i dizzy enough i love you okay here we go
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oh
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well thanks for watching this episode as fast as possible i can't even
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look at the camera don't forget to like this video if you liked it dislike it if
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you disliked it subscribe if you want to subscribe and leave a comment if you
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have suggestions for future fastest possible episodes just like this one
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