Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

I ran a recovery program to try and get as much of my stuff back as possible. I got 21 of my awesome pictures back. I got my choir pictures back. I got about a dozen MP3s back. I got 1 video back from my Caturday series on youtube. The rest of the Caturday series is gone as well as a few other movies I made. The rest of my pictures including my graduation pictures are also gone. My MP3s from honor choir were also gone. I've emailed my old choir teacher to try and get a new set of MP3s and while I was at it I asked about a guitar cable that's been missing. The recovery process was a pain in the neck. A regular scan didn't bring up anything so I had to run a deep scan. The quoted estimated time was 1 hour scan time. I waited for 2 hours last night. It was stuck at 85% for about 45 minutes so I just went to bed. When I woke up this morning it was done but I had 100,000 deleted files to sort through. gonk

Right now I'm burning bridges of sorts. I've recovered what I wanted (that I could find) and I'm running Eraser to completely erase the files from the hard drive. But I thought you could just put it in the recycling bin and delete it from there. Actually deleting a file from the recycling bin doesn't really delete it from your computer. It deletes it from the directory. Remember the old card catalog system for libraries? They used to have small filing cabinets full of cards showing what books they had and where they were in the library. You could take a bunch of cards out of the card catalog and then it would appear that those books do not exist even though they are still on the shelves of the library. That's how file deleting works. Later on as you use your computer the "deleted" files can be overwritten as you use the computer. If they aren't overwritten though they can still be recovered. Anyone smart enough to figure that out can dig up a lot. A deleted file with credit card information or bank account information could potentially be recovered which can aid in identity theft. If you're throwing out a hard drive you should use a file deleting program to get rid of the files for good.

What I've learned from this experience is something I already knew. Don't forget to back up files you want to keep!