FAT32 vs NTFS, Overwritting Deleted File

Hi,

I know about FAT32, but I know little about NTFS. Assuming both
hard drives are not "fragmented". If a large (200MB) file is deleted, is it
more likely to be overwritten (space it occupied on the hard disk is
overwritten) on a FAT32 hard disk compared to a NTFS?

Thank You in Advance, John

PS, Remove "ine" from my email address

wrote:

> I know about FAT32, but I know little about NTFS. Assuming both
> hard drives are not "fragmented". If a large (200MB) file is
> deleted, is it more likely to be overwritten (space it occupied
> on the hard disk is overwritten) on a FAT32 hard disk compared
> to a NTFS?

Why are you multi-posting your question - instead of cross-posting it?

To answer your question, because the FAT32 file system is simpler both
in terms of it's construction and operation, a deleted file is more
likely to be recovered in a given period of time compared to NTFS.

NTFS is a very busy file system, and it's constantly "thrashing" the
hard drive because of it's journalling behavior. So I wouldn't count on
the data in the clusters that were once used for a deleted file to
survive for very long.

The survivability of a deleted file might be more of a factor of the
operating system. For example, win-98 might use a different strategy
when it creates new files or writes new data to a FAT32 file system
compared to win2k or XP, etc. Win-98 might prefer to write new data to
previously unallocated clusters first, and only resort to over-writing
deleted clusters once there are no more "virgin" clusters left.
NT-based OS's might not follow the same strategy when writing to a FAT32
volume.

On Thu, 25 Mar 2010 07:48:34 -0500, wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I know about FAT32, but I know little about NTFS. Assuming both
> hard drives are not "fragmented". If a large (200MB) file is deleted, is it
> more likely to be overwritten (space it occupied on the hard disk is
> overwritten) on a FAT32 hard disk compared to a NTFS?
>
> Thank You in Advance, John
>
> PS, Remove "ine" from my email address

If you want to recover it, it is more likely to be overwritten in NTFS.

If you want to erase it securely, it is less likely to be overwritten in
NTFS.

These are Corollaries 273 and 302 of Murphy's Law.

Eraser will securely erase a file by several methods.
http://eraser.heidi.ie/

--
Gene E. Bloch letters0x40blochg0x2Ecom

<> wrote in message
news:...
> Hi,
>
> I know about FAT32, but I know little about NTFS. Assuming both
> hard drives are not "fragmented". If a large (200MB) file is deleted,
> is it
> more likely to be overwritten (space it occupied on the hard disk is
> overwritten) on a FAT32 hard disk compared to a NTFS?
>



Personally I think this just depends on the size of the drive. Since fat32
drives have historically tended to be smaller than ntfs, then the 'odds' of
a new file requiring to use the old space of an overwritten file, would
necessarily historically have been larger.

So my guess would be that given equal sized drives, the odds would be the
same, but I'm happy to be corrected if someone knows better ....

--
Jon

On Tue, 30 Mar 2010 21:12:33 +0100, Jon wrote:

> <> wrote in message
> news:...
>> Hi,
>>
>> I know about FAT32, but I know little about NTFS. Assuming both
>> hard drives are not "fragmented". If a large (200MB) file is deleted,
>> is it
>> more likely to be overwritten (space it occupied on the hard disk is
>> overwritten) on a FAT32 hard disk compared to a NTFS?
>>
>
>
>
> Personally I think this just depends on the size of the drive. Since fat32
> drives have historically tended to be smaller than ntfs, then the 'odds' of
> a new file requiring to use the old space of an overwritten file, would
> necessarily historically have been larger.
>
> So my guess would be that given equal sized drives, the odds would be the
> same, but I'm happy to be corrected if someone knows better ....

That makes sense to me. However, the real thing might be the way the file
system recycles old free allocation units.

For instance, two (of many) possibilities are FIFO and LIFO: first in first
out vs last in first out.

The former reuses the oldest free blocks first, and the latter uses the
newest first. FIFO is better for not losing recently deleted data.

--
Gene E. Bloch letters0x40blochg0x2Ecom