Just a quick question here guys...

If I keep information on an external hard drive, and I delete that information, my files go to the Recycle Bin.

If I were to disconnect the external hard drive AND empty the Recycle Bin, is the information retrievable in any way?

 

In worst case situations you can pay to have someone read the magnetic traces still on the drive. This is kinda costly so it comes down to how much the data is worth.

There may be a quick and easy answer however. Anyone else out there?

 

It's a lot easier than that....

In most cases, the information is still there if it did not get overwritten by something else. All that happens when you delete a file is that the pointer in the "table of contents" gets deleted. The data is still there! All someone needs is a simple freeware program to put the pointers back.

If you want to make sure your data is gone, you'll need a wiping / "shredding" program. You should be able to find one as freeware. The official DOD (Department of Defense) method is to write alternating 1's and 0's to every bit on the drive making three passes. It's very time consuming. BTW, the version of PGP suite software that I have does this.

 

If you are running NT, W2K, this should solve all your problems:

http://www.execsoft.com/undelete/undelete.asp