What kind of data can typically be recovered from unallocated space on a drive?

Unallocated space on a drive is the area of a storage medium that is not currently allocated to any files or directories. This space can contain remnants of previously deleted files that haven't yet been overwritten by new data. When files are deleted, their data usually remains on the disk until that space is reused, which is what allows digital forensics experts to recover those files, or at least fragments of them, from unallocated space.

Additionally, unallocated space might include parts of files that were fragmented during previous writes, meaning that even if a file was deleted, pieces of it might still exist in a non-contiguous form. Digital forensics tools are specifically designed to scan this unallocated space and reconstruct these deleted files or fragments, making it possible to analyze and potentially restore valuable information.

In contrast, active system files or recently accessed documents would generally reside in allocated space, therefore, they would not be recovered from unallocated segments. Temporary files created by applications may still be present in allocated spaces or in specific temporary file locations and are not typically associated with unallocated space. Thus, the identification and recovery of deleted files and fragments of data from unallocated space represent essential aspects of digital forensics.