How do File Recovery Programs Work?

[Gink]

How exactly do they recover the files?? What would a program have to be written in to be a file recovery program?

[Catweazle]

When a file is deleted, even after the recycle bin is emptied, it is not actually 'wiped' from the hard drive. Only the link to it in the directory is removed. The file contents themselves remain in place until that particular location on the hard drive is written to again.

File recovery programs work at a level below that of Windows, scanning the drive for such 'file fragments' and attempting to link them together to recover what they can and place it in files which can be accessed by your OS.

[caperjack]

How exactly do they recover the files?? What would a program have to be written in to be a file recovery program?

Strange question ,i don't claim to know anything about computer languages but don't think what its written in will matter as much as what it told to do, that would make it a recovery program .
Steve Gibsons SpinRite is written in the Assembly language and is only about 120ks' but what a good program ,because of the fact that he knew what to tell it to do!! ,l just my comment on the question

[Gink]

Strange question ,i don't claim to know anything about computer languages but don't think what its written in will matter as much as what it told to do, that would make it a recovery program .
Steve Gibsons SpinRite is written in the Assembly language and is only about 120ks' but what a good program ,because of the fact that he knew what to tell it to do!! ,l just my comment on the question

I thought certain languages didnt have the same type of access as others.

[caperjack]

I thought certain languages didnt have the same type of access as others.

I don't have an answer to that ,you may ne right !
You should check out the programing section of this fourm .
http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/forum2.html