How Files are Stored on Your Computer Files are stored on your computer similar to how books are stored in a library. A library stores books using a master file index and lots of shelf space. If you want to store a book in a library, you store the book's information and shelf location in the master file index, then place the book on the appropriate shelf. When you want to find a book, you first look up the book in the master index then go to the correct shelf. If you want to remove a book from the library, you check it out and mark the book as removed on the index.
Computer files are similar.
Files are stored on shelf space called hard drive clusters. When a file is saved on a computer, its name and location are stored in the master file index, and the contents of the file are stored in the drive clusters. When a file is deleted, the computer simply marks the file as deleted in the master file index. However, none of the contents of the file are removed from the drive clusters. The deleted data in the drive clusters remains intact until some other file takes its place by overwriting it.