Well i thought... (four O.S. questions)

[Texas04]

Eh.. i thought i was pretty brilliant in computer Os's, runing a small computer repair service out of the house, working at a Computer consultant, but today ive been stummped.
My sister is in college and is taking a technology course (should be simple, not for super geeks) and has these questions for her final.. i dont know any but one
how can you show file extentions?
what appears on the task bar
what happens to files that are deleted from an external drive?
What happens to files deleted from the hard drive?
I am guessing it is talking about the windows os, but i could be wrong... If anyone knows the answers please respond!

 

[eva01]

first it would be best to find out if they mean OS X or Windows for all questions. Because the taskbar is windows, but all the rest could be any system.

It is different for each of them.

I know that to show extensions on OS X it is in the finder preferences.
Delete of External HD is instantly gone (at least from a network)
Off internal goes to Trash can

 

[Texas04]

first it would be best to find out if they mean OS X or Windows for all questions. Because the taskbar is windows, but all the rest could be any system.

It is different for each of them.

Thats what I tried to say, the questions depend on the computer, Its like saying if your car breaks down what should you do first, well you could go as far as to say pull over, or put on the brake to slow down and pull over, or put on the brake to put it in park... or call for help... there is no one answer.. but i figured i could be wrong

 

[Benjamin]

on a windows computer, i think file extensions are a folder option, in os x its one of the finder options. The task bar shows the start menu, open applications as well as tray items, on os x's menubar it is menus and menu extras. When files are deleted, technically they aren't really gone just the directory erases their were-abouts and says it is free space. But i bet gone would be a fine answer. also my guess is that this is a pc we are talking about not a mac.

 

[mkrishnan]

on a windows computer, i think file extensions are a folder option, in os x its one of the finder options. The task bar shows the start menu, open applications as well as tray items, on os x's menubar it is menus and menu extras. When files are deleted, technically they aren't really gone just the directory erases their were-abouts and says it is free space. But i bet gone would be a fine answer. also my guess is that this is a pc we are talking about not a mac.

I'm guessing since the files question is repeated, that they're looking for the answer that it gets moved (by default) to the Trash / Recycle Bin if it's on the boot disk, but gets deleted by default on the external disk (at least, I'm pretty sure this is the way most versions of Windows work). But of course, when the file properly gets delete from either, Benjamin's answer that it gets removed from the allocation table but isn't deleted is correct.

And assuming the task bar is the whole thing, it can also show quick launch buttons, which are links to programs of various kinds, and also typically one for showing the desktop. And of course, it also shows the time.

 

[plinden]

Eh.. i thought i was pretty brilliant in computer Os's, runing a small computer repair service out of the house, working at a Computer consultant, but today ive been stummped.
My sister is in college and is taking a technology course (should be simple, not for super geeks) and has these questions for her final.. i dont know any but one
how can you show file extentions?
what appears on the task bar
what happens to files that are deleted from an external drive?
What happens to files deleted from the hard drive?
I am guessing it is talking about the windows os, but i could be wrong... If anyone knows the answers please respond!

Assuming windows:
1. how can you show file extentions? From an explorer (not MSIE, the file explorer) Tools/Folder Options/View and uncheck the "Hide extensions for known file types"
2. what appears on the task bar? From left: the start button, the Quicklaunch bar (ie short cuts to programs), tabs for the currently running applications, icons for those applications that are configured to be displayed in the notification area
3. what happens to files that are deleted from an external drive? Hmm, not sure about this. I would guess the same as 4.
4. What happens to files deleted from the hard drive? Nothing. The master file table is updated to remove any reference to deleted files but the files are still present (even if you empty the Trash)

 

[w_parietti22]

Well i thought..

thinking is always a good thing to do.

ummm... yeah, i dont know those either

 

[dotdotdot]

4. What happens to files deleted from the hard drive? Nothing. The master file table is updated to remove any reference to deleted files but the files are still present (even if you empty the Trash)

Woah - so, how do you FULLY delete these files?
And wouldn't they take up HD space??

 

[jestershinra]

Woah - so, how do you FULLY delete these files?
And wouldn't they take up HD space??

Using secure empty trash on Mac and on PC any type of "secure delete".

These files are overwritten. The disk (technically the File Allocation Table) designates the place they were as available and data are subsequently added to that space. It is then that the data are truly gone.

 

[mkrishnan]

Woah - so, how do you FULLY delete these files?
And wouldn't they take up HD space??

For the first question, on a Mac...

Even after you empty the Trash, deleted files may still be recovered by using special data-recovery software. To delete files so that they cannot be recovered, choose Finder > Secure Empty Trash. Files deleted in this way are completely overwritten by meaningless data. This may take some time, depending on the size of the file. To prevent the recovery of files you deleted previously, open Disk Utility (in Applications/Utilities), choose Help > Disk Utility Help, and search for help on erasing free disk space.

For the second question, they don't. The allocation table tells you where to look on the hard drive to find a file -- exactly where it stops and where it ends. The computer basically never reads any place not indicated by the file table on the hard disk under normal operation. If you want to use that space, then you overwrite that data, and you put a new entry in the file table that refers to that location. But until you do, it doesn't matter what is in that space -- it only matters that the allocation table doesn't know what's in there.

It's sort of like, if you had a big stack of dry erase boards in a box, that you write all your info on. You have something to remember, you pull one out, erase it, and write a note to yourself on them, you put it on the table. When you're done, you put it back in the box but don't write on it. It doesn't matter what's written on it -- it just matters that it's in the box, so you consider it "unused." When you next need to remember something, you might pick that board out. If you do, you just erase / write over it. Again, doesn't matter that there was something on it.

 

[dotdotdot]

Using secure empty trash on Mac and on PC any type of "secure delete".

These files are overwritten. The disk (technically the File Allocation Table) designates the place they were as available and data are subsequently added to that space. It is then that the data are truly gone.

Woah, now I'm all freaked out about this...

so like, how do you turn on Secure Delete in Windows? Any free software that does this without needing me to reformat my drive?

(Sorry for hijacking this thread...)

EDIT: And, does the hard drive save EVERYTHING, like installed applications, or just documents like .doc or .txt?

 

[Sun Baked]

so like, how do you turn on Secure Delete in Windows? Any free software that does this without needing me to reformat my drive?

(Sorry for hijacking this thread...)

Reformating doesn't get rid of the data, it only gets rid of the file catalog.

Sort of like throwing out the card catalog at a library doesn't get rid of the books, just makes it hard to find a specific book/piece of data.

To completely get rid of a naughty bit -- you got to find it and turn it to ash. On the computer you basically just overwrite that location a couple/few times (or a lot more for sensitive data destruction.)

Of course you can write random data to the drive several times and get rid of everything. Which is what the secure delete does.

Or just duplicate the muppet christmas carols over and over until you fill the entire drive and just throw them all away -- only people that are really serious will be able to recover the files easily.

To totally destroy the data on the drive requires you to vaporize it with a plasma cutter or turn it into an aluminum ingot.

 

[mkrishnan]

EDIT: And, does the hard drive save EVERYTHING, like installed applications, or just documents like .doc or .txt?

As far as the file system is concerned, files of all type are treated equally. So this applies to applications, system files, settings / prefs files, documents, images, music, videos, cache files from Safari or Firefox, etc, etc, etc.

 

[dotdotdot]

If I were to convert a NTFS drive to a drive for linux and then back to NTFS, would ALL the info be gone? or is that the same as just reformatting it...