Why does deleted data stay on a HDD once written, waiting to be overwritten, as opposed to being removed when requesting deletion?
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Imagine your data is a library. Each book (file) has an index card that the librarian can use to quickly find out the location of that book. When the book is to be forgotten, the librarian can just get the index card, and throw it away (or reuse it for another book). The book itself hasn’t gone, but the reference to it has gone. Throwing away the card is quick and easy and doesn’t require the librarian to walk a distance to retrieve the book. If a new book needs to use the same shelf apace as an existing deleted one, the librarian can remove the old book then. Same with erasing data. Just mark the index as empty and reuse the space when required.
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