How to Recover Accidently Deleted Files

Something that most of us will do in our computing lives is accidentally deleting files. Sometimes people will empty the recycle bin without checking its contents, press SHIFT+DELETE on a file or folder (which deletes it without going to the recycle bin) or delete a file or folder from the command line. All of these methods will render the file or folder no longer visible to Windows XP and is seemingly lost forever. Luckily nothing is ever really deleted on your computer unless something else takes its place on the hard drive; Chances are your files are recoverable.

Windows XP doesn’t ship with any tool for recovering files so this is where the free tool Restoration comes in. It is effective at recovering deleted files and it doesn’t require any sort of installation so you can store it on a USB drive if you like.

You can get a free copy of Restoration here. (right click, save file as, and extract it somewhere)

Below is an example of recovering JPG files using the Restoration Tool:

How to use Restoration:

To use restoration, simply choose the Hard Drive which your deleted file was originally on from the dropdown in the upper right. For example, if you deleted a file from your “My Documents” folder you would choose C:

If you would like to only search for a specific type of file such as a word document, type in .DOC in the “All or part of the file” field, otherwise leave blank to find everything.

Click “Search Deleted Files” to start the search. When the search is complete, select the files you want to recover and click the “Restore By Copying” button. When you restore the files, be sure to restore them to another partition or drive to avoid the risk of overwriting the original information you are trying to recover.

More information and instructions on how to use it, please open the Read me file inside the zip file.

Nota Bene: This software is from a third part, Don't blame me for any mistake or outcome may cause.

<!-- Copyright 2006 MK. All rights reserved. -->

[Maxence Melo]

Thanx bro, this' a useful info. I appreciate! None has ever told me about this. Keep it up bro!

[The real MK]

No problem wOrM and its my pleasure doing this, more and more computer info. are coming soon. Stay tuned

MK
IN GOD WE TRUST.

<!-- Copyright 2006 MK. All rights reserved. -->

[mchumba]

I seem to have lost a lot of files and I don't have a clue how! I went out for a couple of hours and when I got back they were gone although my daughter did try to ring me on Skype and now I have no skype either. I am devastated as I have lost all my photos in My Pictures folder and videos of all my kid's birthdays. I have lost all my documents. All our email addresses have disappeared from the MSN start page and we now have to input each one. I seem to be missing folders too. I have gone to search and support center and done everything they said and also done a system restore from last Sunday. Please help me!!

[Shy]

*** Everybody learns that lesson the hard way. In the future, keep a copy of your most important data on write once CDs and do it every month. Whether you need to or not. Keep multiple CDs, one for each most important folder if possible. Also, you may want to spend another $100 for an external USB HDD and copy "everything" there of value as a "second backup", or just buy a thumb drive for $40 and for a second reserve. Personally, I even keep backups in two different houses just in case one burns down. Yes, I've had a house burn down once.

It's like taxes. You'll sleep better at night knowing you have all things in order.

I've thought about keeping this reminder/article in for several weeks. After a few weeks of thinking about it I want to keep this reminder/article in. As from experience I "know" that many people perhaps including my readers dont bother to take the time to back up their most important data. It's one of those things you "have" to take the time to do no matter how busy you are.

In other words, even if you use some type of backup program to back up your entire OS, you still need to have separate, non compressed, nonproprietary standard backups of your most important data to write once standard CD-Rs. You want to go low tech to backup important folders so one can get them back on any other PC.

Lets try another real life example. My daughter saved all her pictures she took in high school to the hard drive from her digital camera. Now her PC is toast and she wants to know if I can get back all her pictures. The drive she saved all her pictures to is extremely virus damaged eg the file names have been changed to characters that aren't recognized now by the CD burning program. It would probably cost between $500 and $2,500 to get the data back from a service. Or, I can take one or two to three days off from work, which I wont get paid for, to try to get her pictures back. It'd be much easier if we had CDs with the data on them.

[Pundit]

What is this? Some sort of monologue? Plagiarism and intellectual dishonesty often reduces a writers to a level lower than they actually are.

If this is the level of intellectual integrity exhibited by our mutual friend on this forum one is forced to feel the "author" leaves much to be desired about the contents of his articles.

http://www.bootdisk.com/housecall/0022.htm

) Lost Lots Of Files

ryvitasue wrote - I seem to have lost a lot of files and I don't have a clue how! I went out for a couple of hours and when I got back they were gone although my daughter did try to ring me on Skype and now I have no skype either. I am devastated as I have lost all my photos in My Pictures folder and videos of all my kid's birthdays. I have lost all my documents. All our email addresses have disappeared from the MSN start page and we now have to input each one. I seem to be missing folders too. I have gone to search and support center and done everything they said and also done a system restore from last Sunday. Please help me!!


*** Everybody learns that lesson the hard way. In the future, keep a copy of your most important data on write once CDs and do it every month. Whether you need to or not. Keep multiple CDs, one for each most important folder if possible. Also, you may want to spend another $100 for an external USB HDD and copy "everything" there of value as a "second backup", or just buy a thumb drive for $40 and for a second reserve. Personally, I even keep backups in two different houses just in case one burns down. Yes, I've had a house burn down once.

It's like taxes. You'll sleep better at night knowing you have all things in order.

I've thought about keeping this reminder/article in for several weeks. After a few weeks of thinking about it I want to keep this reminder/article in. As from experience I "know" that many people perhaps including my readers dont bother to take the time to back up their most important data. It's one of those things you "have" to take the time to do no matter how busy you are.

In other words, even if you use some type of backup program to back up your entire OS, you still need to have separate, non compressed, nonproprietary standard backups of your most important data to write once standard CD-Rs. You want to go low tech to backup important folders so one can get them back on any other PC.

Lets try another real life example. My daughter saved all her pictures she took in high school to the hard drive from her digital camera. Now her PC is toast and she wants to know if I can get back all her pictures. The drive she saved all her pictures to is extremely virus damaged eg the file names have been changed to characters that aren't recognized now by the CD burning program. It would probably cost between $500 and $2,500 to get the data back from a service. Or, I can take one or two to three days off from work, which I wont get paid for, to try to get her pictures back. It'd be much easier if we had CDs with the data on them.

[Picassa243]

I guess you can try recovering back what you lost via many of the available undelete tools on the internet. Unless your data has been shredded it is recoverable. Secondly data does not get lost from the computer plainly. Unless someone has access to it or it is connected to other computers. If this is the case please use tighter security measures.

[Invisible]

	Quote:	mchumba
	I seem to have lost a lot of files and I don't have a clue how! I went out for a couple of hours and when I got back they were gone although my daughter did try to ring me on Skype and now I have no skype either. I am devastated as I have lost all my photos in My Pictures folder and videos of all my kid's birthdays. I have lost all my documents. All our email addresses have disappeared from the MSN start page and we now have to input each one. I seem to be missing folders too. I have gone to search and support center and done everything they said and also done a system restore from last Sunday. Please help me!!

Try this attachment below and come back with comments

Instructions:-

Something that most of us will do in our computing lives is accidentally deleting files. Sometimes people will empty the recycle bin without checking its contents, press SHIFT+DELETE on a file or folder (which deletes it without going to the recycle bin) or delete a file or folder from the command line. All of these methods will render the file or folder no longer visible to Windows XP and is seemingly lost forever. Luckily nothing is ever really deleted on your computer unless something else takes its place on the hard drive; Chances are your files are recoverable.

Windows XP doesn’t ship with any tool for recovering files so this is where the free tool Restoration comes in. It is effective at recovering deleted files and it doesn’t require any sort of installation so you can store it on a USB drive if you like.

How to use Restoration:

To use restoration, simply choose the Hard Drive which your deleted file was originally on from the dropdown in the upper right. For example, if you deleted a file from your “My Documents” folder you would choose C:

If you would like to only search for a specific type of file such as a word document, type in .DOC in the “All or part of the file” field, otherwise leave blank to find everything.

Click “Search Deleted Files” to start the search. When the search is complete, select the files you want to recover and click the “Restore By Copying” button. When you restore the files, be sure to restore them to another partition or drive to avoid the risk of overwriting the original information you are trying to recover.

More information and instructions on how to use it, please open the Read me file inside the zip file.

Nota Bene: This software is from a third part, Don't blame me for any mistake or outcome may cause.

[Dotori]

	Quote:	Pundit
	What is this? Some sort of monologue? Plagiarism and intellectual dishonesty often reduces a writers to a level lower than they actually are. If this is the level of intellectual integrity exhibited by our mutual friend on this forum one is forced to feel the "author" leaves much to be desired about the contents of his articles.

Safi sana! I liked the comment!

[Buswelu]

Thanks Big bro...i was just traying to ask my self about this long time ago...
Just a quick question..can i recover deleted file,folders from external drive i have just buy for my backup...using the instruction u have just give us..
Thank you
Albert