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 Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2009 4:06 pm
Imagine if you will a program - any one will do - on your computer, we'll call it pro A, it performs it's tasks, it's made of data, and it does it's little program thing. Then one day you go buy Halo for your computer and need to clear some space, in other words say goodbye to pro A. Once you stick it the recycle bin and then empty it then pro A floats about in a holding area for a certain period of time (feel free to correct me on that, I heard about it from somone so I'm not 100% sure), then it goes away...but to where?
My question to you is this, if pro A and the data that it's made of is deleted then where does it go? Is data truly able to be terminated or is it a mere representation of space?
Bottom line; What does data do when it 'dies'?
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Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2009 4:55 pm
What happens to data when you empty it from your recycle is that the all the lines of code that make up the program are erased from your memory. Think of it as a paper you write on a piece of paper with a pencil. If you take your eraser and get rid of all marks on the paper, you have deleted the data that made up your paper.
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Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2009 9:13 pm
Well when you erase writing from a paper it turns into a mixture of powdered pencil lead and wood dust, then it gets brushed off the paper and swept away later.
You see, physically you can never really delete anything, if you burn a log it's turned into a mixture of smoke and ash, and recycled back into the ecosystem later, what I want to know is data the same way? is it an actual substance that we simply can't grasp or a concept of space in our computers? Then where does it go?
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Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2009 1:59 pm
Oh i see, what you want to know is the base source of what our data is that can be deleted. The nature of data that is recorded on any computer that is rewritable is in fact only Electricity and Magnetism, hence why it is bad to bring magnets around computers. I do not know exactly how such data is recorded, but I know the transfer of data is all electronic, so when you delete something completely you discharge the electricity that is maintaining the data on your hard drive. (or wherever the data is that it is deletable)
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Posted: Mon Mar 08, 2010 11:06 pm
Ok I have to jump in on this one even though it is over a year since anyone posted on this one....
I thought it was impossible to completely erase anything from your hard drive by normal means (like just deleting it and emptying your recycling bin)
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Posted: Tue Mar 09, 2010 1:13 pm
It is. If I'm correct and my computer nerd fiance is correct, no data can be permanently wiped from a hard disk. If the HDD is in any way intact, data can be recovered from it. I think even if it's been nuked in a microwave or had a powerful magnet passed over it, it's possible to recover the data.
It's a long, arduous task, but doable. Just not by the everyday computer geek.
But, I dunno. That's just what I've heard.
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Posted: Tue Mar 09, 2010 1:28 pm
I heard something similar to that too...
That is how they catch certain people who have things on their hard drives that they try to get rid of (like an employee having porn on a company computer, or a ***** having saved emails from some kid) so yeah I do believe that your fiance is correct, though I have also heard that there are ways to change the file so drastically that it is unrecognizable (like by changing the file type or by doing certain other things that I am not at liberty to disclose, being a government agent and all....(basically really just meaning a bunch of computer code that I know nothing about lol)
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Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2010 5:23 pm
Even if you erase something there are still impressions on the paper.
This was touched on before but the connection between the impressions left behind
and the similarity of this to the impressions left behind by data was glossed over.
In remarkable instances even paper that was burned can still reveal damning evidence. Quote: I think even if it's been nuked in a microwave or had a powerful magnet passed over it, it's possible to recover the data.
As to the original question? I haven't a clue.
This line of thought is similar to my musings on whether or not the internet is infinite.
Is it ever expanding? If someone buys enough servers it goes on and on? Blah! The whole thing makes my head hurt.
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