When you delete a computer file, it goes to the bin etc.. But where do deleted SD files go?

Question

Ive heard that when you delete a file from a computer, it kinda isnt deleted because theres invisible file etc.. And when you delete a computer file, it goes to the recycle bin. But, when you delete a file from an SD card, it doesnt appear in the bin, so, where does it go? Is it just permanently deleted?

Thank you very much for your time

Answer 1

The Recycle bin is not enabled on Removable drives by default, but you can enable it.

Files aren't actually moved to the Recycle bin. Only the directory entry pointing to the file is moved, though small files are actually stored in the directory entry itself. Files too large to fit in the directory stay in the same place on the drive. The directory entry is a pointer to the file.



When removed from the Recycle bin, or deleted on an SD card, the directory entry is marked as available (one byte is changed), and the $BITMAP file is updated to show that the clusters the file was using are available, but the file data is not touched. As long as the file location is not written to, the file can be recovered, Depending on where the file was located on the drive, and the positions of other files, the data could be over written in seconds, or it could take days or weeks. .

Answer 2

Permanently deleted unless you specify in the Properties of the Recycle Bin to go to the Bin, for that specific device prior to deleting the files, but you can only do that if the external sd card or drive is inserted or attached otherwise it won't show up in the drives list..



One might assume that it is still on the SD card but just "hidden" much like a deleted file on a hard drive, maybe it is and no one really knows for sure. Perhaps Undelete might work if you know the exact wording of the deleted filename (spelling and Caps) and the location of the removed file.



Try it, insert your SD card into the same location that it was when you deleted the file, open the RUN command box in Start Menu then type (Folder Name being the folder location on the SD, File name being the actual Filename of the deleted file, .xxx being the extension of the filename



UNDELETE D:\Folder Name\My file.xxx



Hit enter key then go check the SD card for the file.

Answer 3

Actually, from my understanding, until you format or write over the space previously taken up by the file, the data still remains. However, you can not access it normally. This is similar to how in windows only the references to the data is deleted/wiped. Even after those references are gone, the actual data will remain on the drive until formatted over or written over by another file.



This isn't 100% true all the time because different OSs will handle it their own way. Most seem to do that though, in order to achieve very fast "delete" times. Most digital cameras also seem to handle it the same way for sd cards. For that reason you can recover files from an sd card that you thought you deleted, assuming you didn't write over that space or specifically format the card, although formatting doesn't always mean the information is gone either.



Hope that helped a little. You may want to look at the different ways of deletion/formatting for more details.



Take note of the amount of sd card file recovery softwares that exist. This is obviously because they can recover data that your pc would otherwise tell you doesn't exist. If this is a practical question about how to go about undeleting the files, take a look at PhotoRec(free).

Answer 4

It is permanently deleted..



Wat happens is your hard drive has a reserve space for recycle bin. When u delete a file from ur hard disk, it doesnt get deleted actually. It is just moved to tat reserved space(bin). But in the case of SD card, there is no reserved space. So when u delete it, it is actually deleted permanently.