Deleted stuff on a laptop (1 Viewer)

Welsh girl

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What happens with deleted recorded programmes.

After downloading and putting a lot of DVD on to my laptop, it went very slow.
After watching quite a lot and then deleting them my laptop has speeded up.
My question is. .. when they have been deleted from the recycle bin, are they gone from your hard drive?
Can they still be found if so why is my laptop now quicker than before I deleted them.
Do they get shredded by some mysterious programme I don't know about or does windows 7 automatically shred or destroy them?
 

GJH

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It's a while since I looked at it so something may have changed but here is the simplified explanation.

When you delete something from the recycle bin it normally means that only the index entry to where the file is on the disk is removed. That allows the information to be over-written if necessary because there were no unused space. Rescue software can still sometimes retrieve the data.

Defragmenting or using some sort of shredding software deletes/over-writes the data.

It could be that your laptop is quicker because deleting files allows the space they took to be used for temporary swap/cache files - though without seeing the machine one can't be certain.
 

DJA

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Deleted files

Hi

When you delete a file it is not removed completely from the harddrive unless you use specialist software to ensure it is completely removed.

When you create a file it is given an address. This address information is kept in the harddrives address book to advise the computer where to find it when needed. When you delete a file all you do is remove the address information so that the computer does not know where to look. The only other way for a file to be completely removed is for the computer to write another file over the top of it but unless your disk is full this is unlikely.

I had a friend who had 700 photo's on a card which neither the camera or our computer could find. I used some software I have and recovered virtually all but a handful.

A more files that are on a harddrive the slower it is likely to perform. Generally this is because files are not necessarily written consecutively and so the drive has to jump around the disc to get files as they are needed. The fewer files the less dodging about is needed.

Hope that answers your question.

Doug

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TheBig1

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Graham got it pretty well spot on. think of a hard disk as a filing cabinet and the content indexed in a special file. delete a file and you just delete its record, freeing up that space to be reused.
the operating system uses a large file on the hard disk to write temporary files for immediate access as you work. this is what is referred to as temporary memory. if the free space on the disk gets too low, the operating system slows right down because there's too little room for a dynamic temporary memory file

once deleted, the files remain written on the disk until overwritten though, this is how for instance the police can forensically analyse the disk and see what has been deleted. its not too complicated to do but not something to worry about unless you accidentally delete a file that is of value. in which case there are many undelete programs out there
 
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Welsh girl

Welsh girl

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It's a while since I looked at it so something may have changed but here is the simplified explanation.

When you delete something from the recycle bin it normally means that only the index entry to where the file is on the disk is removed. That allows the information to be over-written if necessary because there were no unused space. Rescue software can still sometimes retrieve the data.

Defragmenting or using some sort of shredding software deletes/over-writes the data.

It could be that your laptop is quicker because deleting files allows the space they took to be used for temporary swap/cache files - though without seeing the machine one can't be certain.

It's a Lenovo z370 and has a capacity of 652gb.
Another question please while all you experts are on here.
I was having trouble backing up with Windows own back up so I installed easus todo back up free programme but that says the information to be backed up is too big.
Free space is 209gb.
Used space is 443gb
that's on Cdrive.

D drive is 30.06gb
used space 16.3gb
free space 14.3 gb.

I think Ddrive is for face recognition and restore and recovery purposes.
So I haven't backed up for a while which makes me uncomfortable.
I have tried incremental back up but that doesn't work either.
Any help on this one please?

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DBK

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You need to back up to a completely separate drive. At a rough guess you will need at around 500MB and 1 TB would be better. You can get standalone hard drives of 1TB and one of these would be ideal. I use Windows Backup and have no problem with it. I suspect it was complaining because you were trying to save the backup in the wrong place.

With a 1TB drive you should have room for a couple of complete backups and a system image. You can then delete the older copy to free up room when needed.

My PC backs up automatically every day to a NETGEAR NAS, which is another way of doing it if you have a home network. It has two 1TB drives which are "mirrored" so if one fails the other still has the back up.
 
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Welsh girl

Welsh girl

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You need to back up to a completely separate drive. At a rough guess you will need at around 500MB and 1 TB would be better. You can get standalone hard drives of 1TB and one of these would be ideal. I use Windows Backup and have no problem with it. I suspect it was complaining because you were trying to save the backup in the wrong place.

With a 1TB drive you should have room for a couple of complete backups and a system image.

My PC backs up automatically every day to a NETGEAR NAS, which is another way of doing it if you have a home network.

I have a spare hard drive which is 320gb.
Just realised that it is to small to hold everything on.
So I will look into getting a 1t hard drive now.
I don't have home network.
Only use we wi fi now as I am out of the uk.
Thanks for the advice.

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Welsh girl

Welsh girl

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free up room when needed.

My PC backs up automatically every day to a NETGEAR NAS, which is another way of doing it if you have a home network. It has two 1TB drives which are "mirrored" so if one fails the other still has the back up.[/QUOTE]

I only have the one usable laptop., the other one I have is too old.
Can you recommend a hard drive please and a good price one?
I would prefer one with security measures on it as well.
So that I can lock the information on it with a password or similar.
 

DBK

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Does all the above apply to emails too, please?

Not quite sure what you mean. If you use say MS Outlook it downloads all your e-mails and stores them in a file. It probably also leaves a copy on your providers server. If you use something like btinternet or gmail to view your e-mails then as a general rule they stay on the server unless you delete them but temporary copies can be downloaded onto your PC of more or less anything you view on the net.

As suggested earlier if you really want to remove things from your PC then you need to use special "shredding" software which will overwrite the files often several times, like applying several coats of paint to a wall. But if you just want to be sure a hard drive, PC or laptop you are disposing of has nothing incriminating on it (such as your posts on MHF) then a large lump hammer taken to the said hard drive is as effective a way as any of making the data secure!

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DBK

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free up room when needed.

My PC backs up automatically every day to a NETGEAR NAS, which is another way of doing it if you have a home network. It has two 1TB drives which are "mirrored" so if one fails the other still has the back up.

I only have the one usable laptop., the other one I have is too old.
Can you recommend a hard drive please and a good price one?
I would prefer one with security measures on it as well.
So that I can lock the information on it with a password or similar.[/QUOTE]

*********************

I'll have a look later - sun is shining outside and a glass of cold white wine is calling! Almost too hot to sit in the garden. Dog is sitting in the shade with tongue hanging out.
 

pappajohn

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data is NEVER deleted comletely from your hard drive.

One reason the police forensics can gather evidence to convict a paedophile
 
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I recently bought one of

Maybe of use to you.:thumb:


PS I also opted for the case.

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GJH

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Jill and I both back up our laptops to USB hard drives on a weekly basis but we also have continuous backup to a NAS drive.

We bought a 1TB WD My Book a few years ago and that has been OK but the software ( a version of Memeo Backup) isn't supported past Windows 7. I found a workaround for Windows 8 but there is no way of making it work on 8.1.

WD don't want to know about "legacy" products so that got me wondering how much life there is left in the drive itself. The price of upgrading Memeo isn't cheap either so we bought a Broken Link Removed yesterday which comes with software which does a similar job to Memeo and should keep us going for a few years.

The advantage (to me anyway) of Memeo or Seagate Dashboard is that files are backed up in native format so can be accessed individually if the original is inadvertently deleted or corrupted.

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