Time Machine Backup/HDD/FileRecovery question

Ok so lets say hypothetically, my dad put his SS number and as well as other important documents in his mac. I told him to delete it right away and here's the steps I did. (We're just very cautious since someone stole my sisters identity once already)

So here's what I did, backed up his files in a external hard drive, reformatted his hard drive. Then reinstalled Mountain Lion and put back all his pictures, applications and music.

What I want to know is if I make a time machine backup of this new reinstalled like new Mountain Lion, will it also SAVE the old traces of what was in the hard drive?


Like for example, I buy a 1Tb external. I use time machine to back up the whole thing (the Fresh Mountain Lion I just reinstalled) Then smash the old hard drive that had the SS numbers etc. Will Time Machine SAVE the traces of the sensitive data? can they be recovered from the TIME MACHINE back up? Sorry I don't really know about file recovery etc, lets assume one of the best file recovery/hackers gets a hold of that TIME MACHINE backup, will he be able to recover that data?

Judith1314 said:

yeah, Time Machine can back up all your files, and you can also recover the files. It will do a copy of your files, but you need to backup with an external hard drive for Time Machine.

Click to expand...

The file was deleted already before the time machine back up.

no...

Judith1314 said:

Deleted? Just some or all? Did the system show some error message?

Click to expand...

I deleted it as in reformatted the hard drive.


If time machine backs up your files, it wont back up the reformatted hidden files right? Like if a hacker were to get access to your HDD

Once again the answer is:

no...

TM does not back up files that have been deleted - unless you created a backup prior to the time the file was deleted.

"Deleted" files and "hidden" files are not the same thing. A hidden file is not a deleted file. Deleted files are not hidden files.

Hidden files/folders exist in both Windows and OS X and merely have an attribute that makes them non-visible to the common user. For the most part these are system files and they are hidden so that the unknowing user doesn't go about corrupting them and their operating system.

Hidden files can be seen with the mere flip of a switch to show and then again hide them.
Deleted files are gone and you'll need some type of data recovery program to "maybe" get them back if they haven't been overwritten.

bobtomay is spot on. Time Machine can only back up those files, folders in existence. As you've destroyed the "dangerous files", TM cannot see or read them and does no back them up.

End of story.

If you somehow believe that these "dangerous files' although deleted might conceivably be lurking in your "free space' (which I very much doubt", you can go into Disk Utility, select the drive , click on "Erase" and the click on "Erase Free Space". This fills up your free space and overwrites it so that no recovery programme could find the. But that's OTT.

Ian