I am currently testing the possibilities of files found in the recycle bin being recovered after it has been emptied and the files deleted using the shift + delete keys. As far as I know, emptying the recycle bin is similar, if not the same, with shift + delete. Knowing this, I was expecting that after emptying the recycle bin and deleting files using shift + delete keys, I would be able to recover the files. But after using some data recovery tools such as photorec, testdisk, and recuva, I was only able to recover the files deleted using the shift + delete keys and not found in the recycle bin. I even checked the $MFT file to see if there are still entries related to the files found in the recycle bin but did not find any. Why is this so? I am really puzzled right now since I thought that the files that were temporarily stored in the recycle bin could still be recovered as compared to those that were deleted using shift + delete keys. I am doing these tests in Windows XP Professional in VMWare