What term refers to the location of data that persists in a cluster even after the original file has been overwritten?

The term that refers to the location of data that persists in a cluster even after the original file has been overwritten is slack space. When a file is saved on a disk, it occupies a certain number of clusters. If the file does not completely fill the last cluster it occupies, the remaining portion of that cluster—known as slack space—can still contain remnants of the previous file data. This happens because files are often written in fixed-size blocks or clusters, leading to a scenario where the last block of data from a file may be partially filled with data from an older file that was overwritten.

Detective investigators and forensic analysts often seek out slack space when recovering data, as it can potentially contain valuable information that has not been properly deleted. Slack space presents a unique opportunity to retrieve fragments of old files, making it an important concept in data recovery and forensic investigations.

The other terms do not describe this phenomenon accurately: shadow space typically refers to copies or snapshots created at a certain time, free space is unused space on the disk that can be allocated for new files, and fragmented space refers to files that are split into non-contiguous pieces, impacting performance but not necessarily indicating the presence of old data.