[SOLVED] Might be a silly question but..

[ben1373]

I was trying to recover a deleted file that I deleted a few days ago. I checked recovery software and unfortunately it is likely that it has been overwritten. I didn’t understand this as all I have done in the last few days is wiped windows, haven’t formatted the disk, but have recinstalled question.

My question is, when you wipe windows and thus any windows files currently on your disk. Will these files overwrite any existing deleted files on your disk?

Thanks.

 

[Eximo]

Not a silly question, but there is no definite answer on what happened. That would take a level of disk forensics that is beyond simple software tools that can be downloaded. How files are typically deleted is that the drive just forgets where they are. Recovery software looks for the files' raw data.

If that part of the disk was re-used for any reason it will have been overwritten. Re-installing Windows would have required unpacking the Windows installation and laying down the new files, also 'moving' the old Windows installation. With that much data use going on it is highly likely large portions of the disk were used, even if only temporarily.