So i was enjoying some down time for myself the other night taking a nice warm bath and letting my mind wander when i suddenly recalled a time when i worked at a research station and some idiot managed to somehow delete over 3000 excel spreadsheets worth of recently collected data. I was charged with recovering the data and scanning through everything to make sure it was ok and nothing deleted…must have spent nearly 2 weeks scanning through endless pages…and it just barely dawned on me to wonder…exactly…how the hell do data recovery tools collect “lost data”???
I get like a general idea of like how as long as like that “save location” isnt written over with new data, then technically that data is still…there???? I…thats as much as i understand.
Thanks much appreciated!
And for those wondering, it wasnt me, it was my first week on the job as the only SRA for that station and the person charged with training me for the day…i literally watched him highlight all the data, right click, and click delete on the data and then ask “where’d it all go?!?”
In: Technology
So far most answers have given the correctish answer but not really ELI5. So:
Think of your hard drive as a bunch of storage units, like those garage hunters shows. And they have a manager (this is a part of the PC that handles the process of memory storage.)
So when you delete something, the manager gets a notification for the storage units that file occupied. He now knows those are available, but does little else to them.
So as long as there is nobody new that needs to occupy those storage units, they will remain with the stuff they had. But as soon as a new tenant comes, the manager flicks and swishes his magical erase wand and makes room for the new tenant.
Recovery tools go to the manager and ask him for the list of all storage units, whether they are currently under a tenant or not. Then they let you re-asign them as you wish.
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