Deleted file not in recycle bin

[louis14]

I selected a numer of folder on an usb stick in explorer and right click: choose delete.

windows 10 started deleting; suddenly a popup: "are you sure you want to delete this file?" "it's a system file" the name of the file was "desktop" I clicked: yes

after this again a popup " are you sure you want to delete this file" "it's a system file" I clicked "no"

I runned then stellar data recovery on the usb stick, but it didn't find a file "desktop"
In my recycle bin there is no file "desktop" and the properties of my recycle bin indicates a maximum of 49741Mbytes

Can I be sure the system file I deleted was on the usb stick as there was no file in the recycle bin?

 

[Bighorn]

Sometimes the size of deleted files affect whether they go to Recycle or Permanent. Use of External USB drives generally are permanently deleted rather than being capable of recovery. There should be a prompt to either send to Recycle or Permanent unless it has been disabled in right-click of the Recycle Bin, Properties and the General tab, only 3 choices there so be careful about what you want/need. But again that message about what to do should show up with the usual/only choice being permanent for external drives.

 

[Grizzly]

Usually files that are deleted from USB drives (Flash drives) are permanently deleted whereas files from external HDD/SSD are going in the recycle bin. I have never been asked to send files from flash drives into recycle bin, always permanent deletion...

 

[louis14]

As I remeber I got a popup like you describe: are you sure you want to delete this folders permanantly?

But I want to be sure I did not delete a system file on my c: drive
I suppose a system file bigger then 49741Mbyte does not exist, but if this is the case: there must be a message: file cannot be put in recycle bin because of size.

As deleted usb stick files are not put in recycle bin I suppose the fact I did not find the deleted system file in recycle bin means it's deleted from my usb stick and not from my c: drive;

 

[louis14]

Found.
With the ontrack easy recovery (the same as stellar data recovery) I have found the file XESKTOP.ini as deleted file on usb stick.
Probably it's normally the the first letter of the file is changed.So I'm sure it was a system file on usb stick.

 

[Bighorn]

Probably it's normally the the first letter of the file is changed.So I'm sure it was a system file on usb stick.

That has been the way since back in DOS days [early-90s at least] and proper recovery required putting in the first letter of the file name. And Yes, most .ini files are System files and I'd think the size of 49741Mbytes is way too large, the Desktop.ini file on the Notebook I'm on now is only 174 Bytes.
8 bits = 1 Byte Kilo = thousand Mega = million Giga = billion Tera = trillion