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Leucippus1 t1_iu4soz3 wrote

They stay where they are. Data is written in clusters onto the disk, inside those clusters circuits or little rods (depending on the technology) are positioned / charged to represent the files in binary. Those clusters are tagged for the OS to understand what clusters make up what files. When you delete a file, the clusters themselves remain but the tags are changed so you can overwrite the clusters with new data.

This is why if you accidentally delete something and realize it, you should boot to a live OS (so an OS running off a CD or flash drive, or whatever) that can examine the disk without exposing it to any write operations. If it happens quickly after deletion you can often re-construct the files.

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Excellent_Set2946 t1_iu4u8xn wrote

Dude. Explain like 5 not 15 lol

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Leucippus1 t1_iu4wtty wrote

There is a lot of abstraction to work through, but referring to rule 4 it isn't for actual 5 year olds.

I suppose, if I were to try, I would say that files are written like you might write information in wet concrete that never dries. The write operations is taxing, you have to sit there with a stick and etch in information. At the beginning and ending of each block of etchings, you have a series of symbols that someone can interpret as "these chunks of concrete data represent file x". Now, if I don't need that file anymore it is a nightmare to sit there with a stick and etch out all the data I wrote. It is as taxing as writing the file to begin with. Instead, I change the symbols so instead of saying "these chunks are relating to these files" it says "There is nothing here of interest, use them if you want." You basically make the responsibility of overwriting old data to the new file being written. The new file written doesn't care because that write operation has to write regardless of whether there as data there or not. It makes no real difference whether it is all zeros or all ones or some combo, the new file has to arrange it the way it has to arrange it.

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