Deleting question

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dave
  • Start date Start date
D

Dave

Desperately need to settle an office argument:

Given: You have a 10 page Word document "Once Upon a Time.doc " on your
HD, and you want to delete it - irretrievably

Suggestion #1 - Go to Explorer, find "Once Upon a Time.doc" and delete it

Suggestion #2 - Open "Once Upon a Time.doc" then Ctrl A - delete - in
other words, reduce the doc to one blank page, then save it

Premise: We all know that if you follow Suggestion #1, the doc will remain
on your HD basically untouched, as long as it has not been saved over, and
can be restored by appropriate means.

The question is: If Suggestion #2 in followed, can the doc still be restored
from the HD, by any means?

Thz

Dave
Win XP SP3 Excel(Office)2003
 
Dave said:
Desperately need to settle an office argument:

Given: You have a 10 page Word document "Once Upon a Time.doc " on your
HD, and you want to delete it - irretrievably

Suggestion #1 - Go to Explorer, find "Once Upon a Time.doc" and delete it

Suggestion #2 - Open "Once Upon a Time.doc" then Ctrl A - delete - in
other words, reduce the doc to one blank page, then save it

Premise: We all know that if you follow Suggestion #1, the doc will remain
on your HD basically untouched, as long as it has not been saved over, and
can be restored by appropriate means.

The question is: If Suggestion #2 in followed, can the doc still be restored
from the HD, by any means?
Click to expand...

Yes. What happens deep in the file system is that the previously used
disk space is released and added to the free space chain (or however
free space is kept track of in NTFS), and new space is allocated for
the updated file. So the original data is still out there until it's
overwritten, just like when you delete the file.
 
Dave said:
Desperately need to settle an office argument:

Given: You have a 10 page Word document "Once Upon a Time.doc " on
your HD, and you want to delete it - irretrievably

Suggestion #1 - Go to Explorer, find "Once Upon a Time.doc" and
delete it
Suggestion #2 - Open "Once Upon a Time.doc" then Ctrl A - delete -
in other words, reduce the doc to one blank page, then save it

Premise: We all know that if you follow Suggestion #1, the doc will
remain on your HD basically untouched, as long as it has not been
saved over, and can be restored by appropriate means.

The question is: If Suggestion #2 in followed, can the doc still be
restored from the HD, by any means?
Click to expand...

Some programs, Word is one, don't actually delete the material - it is
simply marked as deleted. Another little trick is to "black out" sensitive
words. These "blacked out" words can easily be retrieved by simply
"un-doing" the black out.

Homeland Security learned that to their peril when they recently published
the anti-terrorism airport manual with the sensitive material "obscured."

In your case, try #2, then save the document. Did the size on the disk
shrink up to a nub? Look at the resulting file with something like Notepad
that doesn't understand the ".doc" format (or rename to "OnceUponATime.txt".
is the material you thought was gone gone?
 
Dave said:
Desperately need to settle an office argument:

Given: You have a 10 page Word document "Once Upon a Time.doc " on your
HD, and you want to delete it - irretrievably

Suggestion #1 - Go to Explorer, find "Once Upon a Time.doc" and delete it

Suggestion #2 - Open "Once Upon a Time.doc" then Ctrl A - delete - in
other words, reduce the doc to one blank page, then save it

Premise: We all know that if you follow Suggestion #1, the doc will remain
on your HD basically untouched, as long as it has not been saved over, and
can be restored by appropriate means.

The question is: If Suggestion #2 in followed, can the doc still be restored
from the HD, by any means?

Thz

Dave
Win XP SP3 Excel(Office)2003
Click to expand...

I think I could get your doc back in either case. Tools don't have much
of an incentive to "write in place" and the designers would normally choose
to open new file space, so that if the program crashes, the source doc is
still OK.

Try Heidi Eraser instead. This could be your Suggestion #3.

http://www.heidi.ie/node/6

http://eraser.heidi.ie/ (Home page for the tool)

They also have a forum. I'd read a few forum posts, to
see how well it works.

Paul
 
Back
Top