What is Recycle Bin recycling?

We live in a world where nothing that we do is absolute. Our tendency is to have control on everything; we like to feel we are the boss. Microsoft decided to put this concept even in the lowest and the lesser known feature of its Operating Systems, Recycle Bin. Nothing you erase is erased, and the "erased" stuff can be managed! Hmmm!

Even if people don’t talk too much about it, Recycle Bin is a very important part of any Operating System.

Basically a folder, Recycle Bin is a special one, a place where Windows stores data. Try imagining you have a folder named "Big red garbage can", and in these folder, you store all of your movies. Well that’s almost what Recycle Bin is all about! Believe it or not, Recycle Bin is only that. It’s like you would move a movie from "My videos" directory to "My music" directory.

What not everybody knows is the way Windows deletes the files. When you decide you don’t need a specific file, you most likely select it and press Delete, so the file is sent to Recycle Bin. Over here, the system does something cute, I’d say. The system stores the "erased" files with their name changed, names you cannot see. Also, beside all there erased files, the system creates a file called Info. This info file plus the erased files, tell the system the original names of the files and the exact location there they were placed before deleting.

But what is the need for this special folder? Usually, you don’t want to find the left-over apple you don’t eat anymore, you don’t want to find it – EVER. With data, though, it’s not the same. You delete something, and after one or two days you decide you need it back. Now is the time when you need Recycle Bin.

Comparing to Ms-DOS (another way you can access your data) the Recycle Bin application has two advantages. In Ms-DOS, when you want to delete a file, you use the command DEL, or for folders RD. Well, a deleted file in Ms-DOS is deleted forever. Without special software, you will never recover what you erased.

But this is not all, the new Microsoft big release, Windows Vista, has a special feature that prevents accidentally data loss: Volume Shadow Copy. Recycle Bin is not enough, Previous Versions are added on the file system level. What it does is very simple to describe. It takes a snapshot of every file or folder, and when you modify it, the previous version is still there, stored in a special place, just in case you need it.

Back to our current version, XP, we all agree that Recycle Bin is needed. Any file or folder that is in there has only two chances: to be restored back to the original place, or to be definitely erased. Well, that’s still not all! With special software you can undelete the "deleted" files. You can recover anything you thought you lost. Being honest with you, an average user can’t do anything to get rid of data. "Ooops, I thought the bad movies I deleted are deleted!" No, not even deleting a file from Recycle Bin (wrongly believed that is destroying the file) could really eradicate the file. Windows never deletes a file! Even if you’re formatting the drive, all the files you have ARE still there. Every time you press delete, Windows crosses down the beginning of the file on the hard-disk, so that Windows thinks it is a free space. It’s not. Windows only overwrites one file over another as many times as you delete data from that specific hard location. Believe me, I have freeware which are able to "see" files I had before I reformatted my hard disk. If you don’t believe me, ask Google.

Well, let’s not be sad. There are special softwares, even some free ones, that can securely delete a file, with the method called "shredder". It actually wipes the same location several times, with different methods, and they promise that specific movie will be erased forever! Finally!

I started my article stating that nothing is absolute. No, your erased files are not erased. Your formatted hard is still not erased. Don’t put your trust in a machine, and don’t put your trust in a brand.