Does backing up a disk copy deleted files and folders?
When you select to backup a full disk (not sector by sector), does anyone know if ATI includes deleted files and folders or skips them? It seems it would save a lot of time to skip these, but I'd like to know for sure for privacy reasons.
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Tuttle, Earlier today I ran a test on this and discovered that ATI DOES in fact copy the deleted files also. I backed up my disk, ran Recuva to see what deleted files were present, then erased the deleted files with a utility and confirmed the erasure.
When I restored the disk and checked again with Recuva all the deleted files were back.
Live and Learn.
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How were the files deleted?
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Acronis creates backup images by copying the occupied data sectors on the drive. If the deleted files shared a sector of the drive that was still occupied by other files, and the entire sector is restored, and file undelete may be possible if the restored sector contained the deleted file.
In addition, if you did not secure erase or use some type of disk overwrite (disk wiping) software of your disk, the deleted files may still be recoverable after doing a restore because they were never wiped from the original drive and still exist.
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James F wrote:Acronis creates backup images by copying the occupied data sectors on the drive. If the deleted files shared a sector of the drive that was still occupied by other files, and the entire sector is restored, and file undelete may be possible if the restored sector contained the deleted file.
Good point, James.
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I had done the deleted file erasing using a utility that securely erased all unused disk space. Can't determine if that is only unused sectors, but it's possible. I also determined that it's possible that ATI, during the restore, restored the MPF's only, but not the data. I believe Recuva bases it's recovery of deleted files on the MPF table. If that's the case, the data is gone, it just doesn't look gone. I didn't try to actually recover a deleted file to see if it was really there.
I'm thinking that it's a better idea to erase the unused data and the unused MPF's BEFORE doing an ATI backup. I was hoping to use ATI to create a copy of a disk with the deleted files completely omitted, but have decided that the shortcut isn't worth it.
Thanks Tuttle and James for your input.
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AndyB wrote:I didn't try to actually recover a deleted file to see if it was really there.
Ah, I see, your post implied that you had done that. Why not try to recover some, to add some real world testing to this thread.
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