Deleted ≠ Gone? A 7-day recovery experiment reveals the truth
Let’s be clear: just because you hit “delete” doesn’t mean your file is gone. That idea bothered me enough that I decided to test it—methodically. Over 7 days, I ran a file deletion experiment across two drives to see what could still be recovered, and how fast files actually vanish.
Turns out, some of what I believed was right. But most of it wasn’t. And by Day 4, I was honestly creeped out by what I found lingering on my so-called “wiped” hard drive.
This post walks you through that journey: the test setup, the day-by-day results, and what you need to do if you actually want your deleted files to be unrecoverable.
Table of Contents
How file deletion really works
Deleting a file just removes its pointer—your data stays until it’s overwritten.
Most operating systems don’t instantly wipe files when you delete them. Instead, they mark that space as “available,” while the actual file sits quietly on the disk. Recovery tools can still pull those files—sometimes perfectly intact—until the space is used again.
Hard drives (HDDs) are particularly forgiving this way. But solid-state drives (SSDs), with their TRIM command, behave differently. In theory, TRIM wipes data soon after it’s deleted. But in practice? Not always. And that's exactly why I needed to test this myself.
What about cloud storage? Most keep deleted files in a hidden trash or archive folder for 30+ days unless you empty them manually. Even then, server-side backups can still hold them. Deletion, it turns out, is a fuzzy concept.
The experiment setup
I picked two drives—one HDD, one SSD—and deleted 1,000 real-world files.
I created a mixed dataset of documents, images, PDFs, and videos totaling 3.2GB. Then I deleted them the usual way: moved them to Recycle Bin, emptied it, and waited. No fancy secure erasure, just what most users do.
Then I started tracking recovery results day-by-day using three tools: Recuva, EaseUS, and Photorec. Every day, I added dummy files to simulate regular usage and increase the chance of overwritten data.
- ✅ Day 0: Delete files normally
- ✅ Day 1–6: Add 5–20GB dummy files per day
- ✅ Daily scan: Check recovery results for each drive
I logged which files came back clean, which came back broken, and which disappeared altogether. I also noted scan times and how long each tool took to show usable results.
Day 1–2: What I could still recover
Almost everything came back on Day 1. Even videos.
The HDD behaved like a hoarder—it remembered nearly everything. File names, full-resolution images, complete documents. I was able to open files that I had “deleted” hours before with zero issues. Videos were slightly corrupted but still viewable.
The SSD surprised me. I assumed TRIM would kick in instantly and scrub everything. But I could still recover PDFs and JPEGs with partial integrity. Not everything came back, but a good portion did—and fast.
On Day 2, I filled 10GB of space with large random files. That changed the story. On the HDD, some media files got chopped in half. On the SSD, image thumbnails began disappearing, but file headers still showed up.
The eerie part? One JPEG opened to reveal just the top half of a face—frozen mid-laugh. It was equal parts fascinating and unsettling.
By the end of Day 2: I recovered 78% of the original files from HDD, and 41% from SSD—with more decay showing up by the hour.
Day 3–4: When recovery turned weird
By Day 3, things got messy. And not in the way I expected.
I filled another 20GB of junk files onto both drives. That’s when partial recoveries started to spike. Some files were now listed by recovery tools but returned only half their data. A DOCX opened with gibberish. A PNG showed only its background color. A PDF crashed Adobe Reader completely.
The HDD still showed file names and paths, but the contents were broken. The SSD got weirder. One deleted MP4 came back—but scrambled, frozen halfway through. Another showed up on the scan, but clicking it revealed only a thumbnail preview. The actual video file? Gone.
That’s when it hit me: TRIM doesn’t erase data immediately—it queues the request. Depending on usage and controller design, SSDs might hold on to blocks longer than you think. One scan at 8 a.m. showed a file missing. By 10 p.m., the same file appeared again. It wasn’t magic. It was lagged cleanup.
Realization: Deletion on SSDs isn’t instant—it’s a waiting game. You may think it’s gone, but under the hood, it’s hanging around for a while.
Also, by Day 4, I noticed a new problem—recovery scans took much longer. The HDD scan time jumped from 22 to 47 minutes. That’s because the file system was trying to reconcile fragmented bits and overwritten chunks. It was like trying to reassemble a shredded photo where half the pieces had been burned.
The SSD scan time stayed short, but results were frustrating. Some files were marked as “recovered,” but unusable. One tool called them “zombie files”—they look alive, but aren’t. I couldn’t open them, but the system insisted they existed.
At this point, I stopped assuming recovery was binary—found or lost. It was more like a spectrum: complete, partial, broken, ghost. And none of that was predictable.
The emotional shift was real too. I started the test curious and confident. Now, I felt paranoid. How many “deleted” files were floating in ghost form on my own real-life drives?
By end of Day 4: Recoverable files dropped to 44% on the HDD and 18% on the SSD—but ghost files and metadata traces still filled up the scan logs.
I still had three more days to go. But by now, I already knew one thing for sure—deletion doesn’t mean privacy. And even “empty” drives can whisper secrets if you know how to listen.
Final findings and what you should do
By Day 5, what I thought was gone... wasn’t really gone.
I filled both drives with another batch of 50GB dummy files. The HDD began to buckle: filenames were still visible in recovery tools, but the contents were mostly garbage. PDFs opened as blank files or with shredded text. The SSD? It looked clean—at first.
Then came the twist. I ran a deeper Photorec scan. It found fragments of JPEGs, even after the files supposedly vanished days ago. They weren’t usable, but they existed—proof that deletion wasn’t truly final.
By Day 6, I did a quick format on both drives. That’s what many users do before reselling. Shockingly, one recovery tool still retrieved folders from the HDD. Not files—just folder structures and logs. On SSD, there were no usable files, but metadata artifacts still popped up in scan logs.
The real threat? You might think your files are gone, but timestamps, filenames, even access logs can linger—and those tell stories.
By Day 7, recovery results dropped to nearly zero. But I realized the battle wasn’t about files—it was about traces. Anyone with access to even the shell of your drive could learn what you opened, when, and how often.
Below is how the numbers stacked up:
✅ What you should do instead
Want your files truly gone? These steps will help.
- ✅ Use secure erasure tools (e.g., BleachBit, Eraser) to overwrite files multiple times
- ✅ Enable full-disk encryption from the start (BitLocker, FileVault)
- ✅ Avoid “quick format” if you're planning to discard or sell the drive
- ✅ Overwrite free space regularly with dummy data to clean up remnants
- ✅ Double-check cloud and external backup systems for copies
- ✅ Physically destroy storage for highest security (especially HDDs)
I expected this 7-day test to reassure me. It did the opposite.
Deleting a file is not the end of the story—it’s barely the beginning. In 2025, digital traces are harder to hide than ever. If your data matters, don’t rely on illusion. Make it unrecoverable—for real.
Sources:
#filedeletion #digitalprivacy #SSDrecovery #datasecurity #cyberhygiene #forensicdata #secureerase #techfacts
