Question

john accidently deleted an important document. where can he retrieve it from?

Answer 1

Know what happens to deleted files?

Answer 2

He can retrieve it in the recycling bin. Any deleted documents WILL go to the recycling bin, and, from there, you'll decide whether you want to delete it permanently or not.
Hope this helped!

Answer 3

Not really relevant to the question, but more in response to @kym02 using the word permanently. Nothing is permanently deleted from a hard drive unless it is overwritten. Any deleted files can be retrieved even those that have been emptied from the recycle bin. To permanently delete a file you must write over the space on the disk that it was stored with different data (usually zeroes).

Answer 4

If safety mechanisms like the Trash/Recycle Bin have been emptied, the OS will remove all references to the file[s]. The data is NOT removed. It's very similar to a book. The table of contents is adjusted, but the pages of the chapter aren't touched. A "secure" delete does immediately destroy the actual data.

Time is now your enemy. Because the space on the drive is marked as free, and a decent OS will use the best real estate first, new data may be written to your deleted file's space, overwriting the deleted file's data. Murphy's law comes into play here. If you want the data, it's probably overwritten quickly, if you never want the data to be read again, it'll probably never be overwritten.