Deleted data

Deleted data is not really lost but is simply ignored by the operating system. If the user deletes a file (hereby it is not meant shifting it into the Windows waste-paper basket), the first letter of a directory entry is provided with a special character (it is E5 hexadecimal - i.e. 229 decimal). In addition, the information about the order of the clusters has been removed by the erasure however. That plays no role in this respect, if the file was not fragmented (i.e. all clusters of the file were stored successively). With fragmented drives (this originates through frequent erasure and storing) the chances for recovering looks relatively badly. If however the file is visible under the folder 'Deleted' in Drive Rescue, you can try to recover it, and Drive Rescue will assume the file is not fragmented.