I am interested in the following subject,in order to properly wiping free space Is a shadow copy of file made and stored on your PC by the operating system WHENEVER you store a copy of such file on your computer? OR ALSO whenever you VISUALIZE such a file from an external device although you don´t copy or save it on your computer(i.d. you plug a USB stick on your PC and read a txt file, or a picture, or listen an audio record but you don´t sabe it on your computer)?
I am interested in the following subject,in order to properly wiping free space Is a shadow copy of file made and stored on your PC by the operating system WHENEVER you store a copy of such file on your computer? OR ALSO whenever you VISUALIZE such a file from an external device although you don´t copy or save it on your computer(i.d. you plug a USB stick on your PC and read a txt file, or a picture, or listen an audio record but you don´t sabe it on your computer)?
You seemingly have not documented yourself properly on what a shadow copy is. (
Shadow copies are a particular kind of "system restore" features that *some* Microsoft OS sport.
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And you still fail to grasp the genericness (or vagueness) of your question, as each Operating System, each file type, each application may behave in a different manner.
Specifically - besides the behaviour that as said may be different for each file type and program under a same or different OS and that may (or may not) produce a local copy (and even if it does it may be a "temp file" deemed to become anyway "free space") - there will be on most MS Operating systems a zillion traces of the device being connected and of the file being accessed.
jaclaz
I am interested in the following subject,in order to properly wiping free space Is a shadow copy of file made and stored on your PC by the operating system WHENEVER you store a copy of such file on your computer? OR ALSO whenever you VISUALIZE such a file from an external device although you don´t copy or save it on your computer(i.d. you plug a USB stick on your PC and read a txt file, or a picture, or listen an audio record but you don´t sabe it on your computer)?
If you want to wipe free space using (insert wipeing tool here) just turn off the vss service (system protection dialog - right click on my computer) for the drive you want to wipe. This will delete/deallocate the current shadow files so that the content becomes unallocated space and you can wipe away to your hearts content.
thanks for your answers, and sorry that in fact my question was somewhat vague and unespecific.
I will try to ask according and example more concrete
You have a PC (Windows 7), plug an external HDD or Flash card to the PC and select on the external drive a WAV file, a piece of music. You listen it. Then you unplug the external dive Does this action leave any copy of the WAV file in any part of the computer?
(Paul thanks for your information about VSS) 😉
I am not speaking of , simply, 'traces' left behing, but a fulll copy of , let´s say, a WAV file, on the computer.
jaclaz, I did not understand totally your answer. My quesion, in short, is
if you plug a pendrive or USB hard drive, or other device, into a PC(windows vista or 7), select a file -let´s say a WAV file- and listen it, and then unplug the external device , Does remain any kind of copy of that file in the PC, so it can be recovered later?
jaclaz, I did not understand totally your answer. My quesion, in short, is
if you plug a pendrive or USB hard drive, or other device, into a PC(windows vista or 7), select a file -let´s say a WAV file- and listen it, and then unplug the external device , Does remain any kind of copy of that file in the PC, so it can be recovered later?
That may depend from a number of factors, including the specific WAV player, the size of the WAV file, the amount of RAM you have, the settings for pagefile.sys, etc.
What surely remains "here and there" are traces that you connected a given USB Mass Storage device and listened to that file.
As an example, if the file is named 😯
"the_recording_I_made_on August_19th_when_I_strangled_my_neighbour's_cat.wav"
you might find yourself having a hard time explaining that. wink
jaclaz
In any case, if your PC stored any copy of such a file, would be enough for deleting it, to clean free space with zeros?
In any case, if your PC stored any copy of such a file, would be enough for deleting it, to clean free space with zeros?
Who knows?
As said it may depend on a number of factors IF the file is actually copied, IF it is actually "normally" deleted after having been run, etc., etc.
If you find the area occupied by that file on disk (if any) and fill that area with 00's (and that area may or may not be "free space") yes, the file is "gone forever".
jaclaz