how are hard drives and ssds contain things that were delete?

[adarw]

i dont get it, i understand how both work but why do they keep deleted things yet have the same amount of storage as before.

[Guest]

https://www.exxactcorp.com/blog/Troubleshooting/zeroing-out-a-hard-drive-in-windows

[Guest]

A quick format doesn't do what the above link explains, it just creates a new partition and continually overwrites the exitsing data.

[Electronics Wizardy]

When you delete a file, it just delets the pointer to the file, not the data on the disk.

 

When you want to write a new file, it will use unused space where old files may have been, this will overwrite the old file.

[aDoomGuy]

^that

 

If you want the data permanently removed you need to overwrite it. I'll list a couple of software that will help you.

 

To delete all data on a drive: Darik's Boot and Nuke. https://dban.org/

You make a bootable CD/USB and boot to it, it will completely wipe all data by overwriting it.

 

If a nuke is a bit much, then use Eraser to overwrite certain files and folders. https://sourceforge.net/projects/eraser/

 

 

[Somerandomtechyboi]

31 minutes ago, aDoomGuy said:

If you want the data permanently removed you need to overwrite it. I'll list a couple of software that will help you.

A stupid question but

Could you delete all your data permanently via using a zip bomb to overwrite all the old files?

[aDoomGuy]

23 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

A stupid question but

Could you delete all your data permanently via using a zip bomb to overwrite all the old files?

What is a 'zip bomb'?

 

The tools I provided will work.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

16 minutes ago, aDoomGuy said:

What is a 'zip bomb'?

 

The tools I provided will work.

I think zip bombs are extremely large zip files when you try to open them

 

Might be usefull if i try selling any storage in the future, thx for the tool reccomendations

[aDoomGuy]

2 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

I think zip bombs are extremely large zip files when you try to open them

 

Might be usefull if i try selling any storage in the future, thx for the tool reccomendations

Sounds even less than practical... no problem.