[access-uk] Re: deleted email
- From: "Andrew Hodgson" <andrew@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 29 May 2004 00:06:55 +0100
Hi,
Looking at deleted emails, these may be easier to recover than you
actually think.
Since the standard way of storing information in an email client is to
use some type of database system, whereby there are files containing the
data, and indexes pointing to relevant offsets in the file for each
message, when you remove the message, even from Deleted Items, it
usually just gets rid of the offset in the index. The message is still
there in the raw data file, but is not pointed to by any other index.
To get rid of the email, you do a compact, which recreates the raw data
file with the items that are only in the index, nothing else, therefor
purging the old emails. This is a timely process, and so is only
usually done on demmand, or when the size of the raw data file is a
certain percentage larger than the compacted size.
Of course, once the file is compacted, you then have to worry about
previous copies of the data files being left somewhere in the depths of
the disk -- i.e, it is recoverable like any other deleted file on the
disk, so long as the sectors have not been overwritten.
I once saw a demonstration of recovery software used by the UK crime
squad for getting such data back. The process of getting it back was
very simple, but the complex bit was making sense of all the files on
the system -- deleted or not, and the type of file they were.
Andrew.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: access-uk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx=20
> [mailto:access-uk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Derek Hornby
> Sent: 28 May 2004 10:26
> To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [access-uk] Re: deleted email
>=20
>=20
> Hi Mark
> > does my deleted email remain on my hard drive after I
> >have cleared my deleted email box? and after I have=20
> performed a disk clean?
>=20
> No
>=20
> Regards,
> Derek
>=20
> e-mail: derek.hornby_uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>=20
>=20
>=20
>=20
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