Sumi
Favorite Answer
When ever you put a file on your phone, your camera, your iPad, or your computer, that part of the storage space is market so that your computer does not write over it with another file. When delete the file you are not actually deleting it. Instead what is happening is that none of the data is being deleted, but rather that specific area (called a sector) has it's flag changed from protected used space to available space on the storage device. If the space does not get written over, then just about anyone who spends about 2 minutes on google can figure out how to recover the data.
It's when the data gets over written by new data over and over again do it become increasingly difficult to impossible to recover. However, the NSA has very smart engineers that can, in most cases, recover data that has been written over many times.
Formatting doesn't wipe anything from the drive. Formatting just marks all of the sectors as available space. The data does not go anywhere. The only way to remove the data permanently is write a series of 1s and 0s to the entire drive or card multiple times.
qrk
They are still there. When you delete pictures, the name of the file is changed so it won't appear in a directory listing. A file recovery program (many free programs out there) can bring the images back to life. There are programs to wipe the memory card, or you can fill it with garbage information, or destroy the card with a hammer.
snowwillow20
An average person with some free recovery software like recuva can indeed access those pictures if they a had a mind too. You should format the card, take some pictures and format the card a few times.
keerok
Format the card. There's an option in your camera to do that.
?
Some CSI tech working for the FBI can likely recover them, but some average person will not be able to recover them.