I transferred some files on my USB Drive to my new Chromebook Laptop and was quite surprised when it processed and installed some of my MSWord files, even further surprised to find that there is a free App that will allow me to install "Word" on Chromebook.

Just thought that was interesting but it has nothing to do with my USB question. When I was done transferring those files, I put the usb drive back into my Windows 7 Pro computer and there were some files on it that I wanted to delete. After performing the delete, I noticed that they did not go to the recycle bin so I was wondering if anyone knows where they go? You do not get the option, "do you really want to delete these files" so if you do it, they are gone forever I guess or are they still on the usb drive and you just cant see them?

It is quite normal that a removable drive may not ask for confirmation when deleting a file. This can be controlled on a drive by drive basis in Windows but I have no idea as to on a Chromebook as it is running Google's OS, not Windows. In my case, on my main system, I have it set just the opposite. Deleting a file on an internal drive will not trigger the confirmation dialog but the dialog will be triggered on an external drive.

And, yes, the files are probably still intact on the external drive but not exactly the same as changing a file attribute to hidden. When a file attribute is changed to hidden it just isn't seen in File Explorer but can still be accessed by specific software associated with the file. The system still sees the file as valid and taking drive space.

When a file is deleted it is similar to being hidden but there is no access to the file at all. All that really happens is that a 'flag' is set on the file saying that it has been deleted but it is still actually present. The difference is that a deleted file can be overwritten and truly lost as the system now thinks that the space on the drive used by the deleted file is free space where a hidden file can't be overwritten as the system still knows that the file is taking the drive space. This is why you should never use the hard drive (if possible) when you accidentally delete a file. As long as the deleted file is not overwritten it can usually be recovered by data recovery software. All this software really does is to change the flag on the file saying it is deleted to it not being deleted.

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I must have done something wrong because when I tried to use that USB drive again, it said that I must format it before I can use it, also stating that all information on the drive would be lost. Since I had no choice, I formatted the drive and when I opened it, nothing was there.....which was not true. It is a 64gb drive and when I checked the properties, it only showed 32gb available and 31.9gb used, which of course must mean that there is a lot of stuff on the drive but I just cant see it, right?

Also will add that all of this was done on my Windows 7 pro computer.

That sounds a bit odd. Did you format the drive FAT, FAT32, EXT3(?), or NTFS? Of course it is possible that the drive picked that time to go bad.

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It really is odd. I formatted it Fat32 because that was the default. I checked the price on some USB Drives and they are not very expensive so I am just going to toss the old one and get a new one. Thanks again Jay for your help. We may make Victoria's Secret yet.!!

LOL! Victoria's Secret here we come...

I agree that a flash drive isn't really worth spending time with. The reason I asked about the format is that I had the same thing happen once but long enough back that I can't remember the details. I think that I had formatted it NTFS and then tried to go back to FAT32. I also had half the drive.

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