Are you sure to delete the file permanently from your computer

When you delete a file from your computer, it moves to the Recycle Bin or we can set up to delete the file without moving it to the Recycle Bin. When you empty the Recycle Bin, the file is permanently erased from the hard drive. Right?

Are you sure to delete the file permanently from your computer

Well, the file appears to be trashed out but a skilled person can restoring the "deleted" file using data recovery software – some of which are freely available online.



The reason behind this:

When you delete files or folders, the data is not initially removed from the hard disk. Instead, the space on the disk that was occupied by the deleted data is "deallocated." After it is deallocated, the space is available for use when new data is written to the disk. Until the space is overwritten, it is possible to recover the deleted data by using a low-level disk editor or data-recovery software.


In more technical aspect, computer writes the data of a file in the tracks of the hard disk in a sequential manner. When you delete a file in the hard disk, the allocation details of the file will be removed but the data will be remained in the tracks. Next time when the computer writes the data, it chooses the empty space available at the end of the tracks. Once the final tracks of the disk is written, it searches for the empty unallocated space. In that way, the deleted files are not fully deleted from the disk, so it recoverable from the disk.


To permanently erase files and prevent your confidential files from getting into wrong hands, Microsoft offers a free command line utility – SDelete (Secure Delete) – that overwrites all the free space to prevent data recovery.

You can use SDelete both to securely delete existing files (replacement of delete), as well as to securely erase any file data that exists in the unallocated portions of a disk (including files that you have already deleted or encrypted).