Ways I Can Find Your Deleted Files as An Ethical Hacker

Vijay Gupta
7 min readSep 4, 2024

In the digital age, the privacy of our data has never been more critical. Whether you accidentally delete a file or purposely erase it, there’s always a lingering question: Is it truly gone? As an ethical hacker, I can reveal that even deleted files can often be recovered with the right tools and techniques. This blog will walk you through various methods to retrieve deleted files, explore how these techniques work, and offer code snippets to demonstrate the processes.

Understanding File Deletion

Before diving into recovery techniques, it’s crucial to understand what happens when a file is deleted. In most cases, deleting a file doesn’t erase its content from the hard drive. Instead, the operating system removes the file’s entry from the file system directory, marking the space as available for new data. Until that space is overwritten by new information, the original file data remains on the disk and can often be recovered.

Method 1: Using Data Recovery Software

One of the most straightforward ways to recover deleted files is by using specialized data recovery software. These tools scan the disk for recoverable data and attempt to reconstruct the original files.

Steps to Recover Deleted Files…

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Vijay Gupta

Vijay Gupta is an inspiring public speaker and social entrepreneur who has dedicated his life to bringing about positive change and empowering communities.