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Handy Hints |
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How to Recover Deleted Files with Free Software
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You delete an important file or photo, somehow it skips your Recycle Bin altogether, and for all practical purposes,
it's disappeared forever. But before you hit the big red panic button, there is a very good chance that your file
is still alive and kicking somewhere on your hard drive — you just need to know how to find it. With the right tools,
finding and recovering that deleted file can be as simple as a few clicks of your mouse.
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Overview
Ok, so you've lost an important file. Don't panic. Take a breath, and let's see if we can find it.
Before you go into full file recovery mode, make sure you double-check the folder you had saved it in and the Recycle Bin.
Still nothing?
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1. Stop What You're Doing
When your operating system deletes a file, all it really does is mark the space on your hard drive that your file
occupies as free space. It's still there, but your computer is now perfectly happy to write new data on top of
it — at which point the file recovery process becomes a lot more difficult.
That means you should stop, or do as little computing as possible, until you find the file
you're looking for. Every time you save a new file your computer writes information to your hard drive and your
chances of recovering the file are reduced.
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2. Find the Right File Recovery Program
There are many file recovery programs available, but we have selected the best free options for you
to use. These are listed opposite. Beware of some programs that lure you with fantastic claims.
Most of these have a size recovery limit, and will not complete the recovery until the program has
been purchased. And sadly, even then, the results are often very poor.
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3. Procedure - Let's Get Started
Once you've picked a program to use it's time to scan your hard drive for your lost file or photo. This
process varies depending on the program you are using, but it's basically the same for all of them :
Just point the program at the hard drive or folder that was holding your missing file and start your scan.
Once the scan is complete, you will see a big list of jumbled file names. Often most of these files are nothing
more than system files that your operating system has created in the course of basic operation, and you won't
need to worry about them. You're just looking for the file type and name that matches what you have lost.
Once you find what you're looking for, saving it is a matter of right-clicking the file and choosing where to
save it.
If you have tried the procedure above with out success and still it might be worth trying again with a different
application, since there can be a lot of variation between programs. If you're still not having
any luck, the next part discusses a few other ways you can try addressing more specific problems when your
data goes missing.
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4. More Specific Problems
Above we gave you a basic overview for recovering deleted files from your computer. Now we'll take a closer
look at some more specific problems, methods of data recovery, and tools that may be of help in your quest for
your elusive lost data.
Recover Files from a Wiped or Unbootable Hard Drive
So you didn't just accidentally delete a file or two and empty your Recycle Bin prematurely — instead
you have a whole hard drive worth of missing data. You can still use many of the applications listed to recover
files from these drives as long as you have or can get the hard drive into a bootable computer.
For more details, check out how to recover files from a wiped hard drive with PhotoRec
[original article]
or you may also use PC Inspector File Recovery.
If you can't or don't know how to get your unbootable drive into another computer,
a Linux live CD
can be perfect for rescuing files. If the Linux route scares you off, give the popular
BartPE a try.
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5. Recover Lost Photos
If you need to resurrect photos from a damaged flash memory card from your digital camera, you'll be
happy to know that most of the applications listed above [PhotoRec] will do the trick — you just need plug
in your camera or insert the card into your computer's card reader before running your data recovery
application of choice. That said, you can find other applications, like
Zero Assumption Digital Image Recovery,
that are focused specifically on image recovery that you may want to add to your data recovery toolbox.
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6. Recover Data from Scratched or Corrupted CD or DVD
If your mangled data is sitting on optical media like a CD or DVD, the recovery process can be slightly
different. Freeware application
CD Recovery Toolbox
is made specifically to read the portions of a CD that are readable in an effort to rescue as much data as possible
from a damaged disc. If that doesn't work, you may want to take a look at
CDCheck. Then again, if scratches
are the issue, you may be able to get away with simply fixing your scratched CD or DVD
yourself.
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7. Don't Let This Happen Again
Whatever the cause of your lost file, the best method of data recovery is a good preemptive data backup plan.
HERE is a step-by-step guide on how to automatically back
up your hard drive so that this sort of thing never happens again.
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Which Recovery Program ?
Recuva
Recuva is a freeware Windows utility to restore files that have been accidentally deleted from your computer.
This includes files emptied from the Recycle bin as well as images and other files that have been deleted by
user error from digital camera memory cards or MP3 players. It will even bring back files that have been deleted
by bugs, crashes and viruses.
Recuva
Undelete Plus
Undelete Plus is a quick and effective way to restore accidentally deleted files. It can also recover files that
have been emptied from the Recycle Bin, permanantly deleted files within Windows using the Shift + Delete, and
files that have been deleted from within a Command Prompt.
Undelete Plus
PC Inspector File Recovery
PC Inspector File Recovery is another file data recovery software program designed to recover lost files
from Hard Disks. It does not work on CDRom's or DVD's.
PC Inspector File Recovery
PhotoRec
PhotoRec is file data recovery software designed to recover lost files including video, documents and archives
from Hard Disks and CDRom and lost pictures from digital camera memory. PhotoRec ignores the filesystem and goes
after the underlying data, so it will still work even if your media's files ystem has been severely damaged
or re-formatted.
PhotoRec
Zero Assumption Digital Image Recovery
Mentioned in the main page [5] this program gives a camera compatibility list and an excellent tutorial which
describes the procedure used to recover photos stored on the digital camera memory card.
Zero Assumption Digital Image Recovery
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