Where do deleted files go? Do they really get deleted and if so, how?
In: 1
I’ve always imagined it like this:
Have you ever seen those things where it’s iron filings encased in a screen and you use a magnetic pen/stylus to grab the filings and draw things with it? The filings will stay on the screen until you swipe them off; the filings are still in the screen, they’re just not in any kind of configuration, they’re waiting there until the next time you draw something with the magnetic pen to put them in a new configuration. (One example of these devices is an Etch-a-Sketch for those old enough to remember, except here you use dials to magnetize the filings for drawing).
Data on a hard drive works in a similar way. When you “delete” something you’re not actually deleting the “stuff” that made the file, you’re just deleting the configuration they were in to make that file. The “stuff” is still there, it’s just now freed up to be put into a different configuration when you create a new file.
(It goes a little deeper than this, which others have addressed, but this is the basic principle.)
Latest Answers