Have you ever discovered that you have accidentally deleted your most valuable files from your computer or flash drive?
It could have been your family photos, or your early morning seminar presentation, or just that critical document you had worked so hard create.
Whether it was an accidental delete, a drive format or a virus prank, do not despair chances are high you can still recover your files.
Before we start getting geeky, the first place you probably would want to look into is your recycle bin. This is your first drop where your deleted files will go.
This is obviously not news to most users, but not all deleted files will go to the bin.
With old windows platforms like XP and other non-NT versions, all files larger than 650mb will be completely deleted from your computer without first going through the recycle bin.
Most experts avoid the delete then empty bin process by pressing combination shift+del, this is a quick way to completely remove the unwanted file from the machine without any need to empty the bin, after this your file is gone, but the question is where to?
What happens when you delete your files or data from the computer? Where do these files go? Contrary to popular belief, when you empty your recycle bin your file is not totally lost, it goes to another “virtual” recycle bin; it’s just that this time you cannot see the deleted data.
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In fact is much harder to lose a file than to recover it.
When you delete a file, the contents of that file are not necessarily immediately overwritten or removed.
Instead, the space used by that file is marked as “available” so that it can be used the next time data is written to the disk. As long as that doesn’t happen and the old data is not overwritten by something new, chances are high you can recover the file.
Adding any new data or continuous use of the affected drive will cause data to be overwritten.
After a delete,this simply opens up free space for new data to be written but if you do no overwrite that space then it is much easier to recover your deleted files.
This do-it-yourself series should empower you to tackle these issues without technical assistance.
As soon as you discover that you have deleted a very important file, it is advised that you stop working on it, do not add any new file to your computer. Do not panic and just run a data recovery tool.
It is much faster and easier to have this software pre installed before the crisis, but it also works even after the deleting mistake.
These are very simple, user-friendly tools to help you get back your data. Among the thousands available softwares online, I can safely recommend “Recuva”, this is a free, but strong data recovery tool which can do wonders. Other good freewares are disk internals and undelete plus.
Computer forensic experts thrive in scavenging the long-gone, lost and formatted data even overwritten a thousand times. It is just that these tools are not easily available to ordinary users unless you are ready to pay the good price tag.
Data recovery companies also run good recovery applications to retrieve lost data from your fixed or portable hard drives.
These are more professional services to engage when push comes to shove, but really it’s a question of just how deep your recovery software can dig. So long as the storage media is still available and operational, any data can be found on it.
The beauty and the beast of data recovery cannot be understated, the same technique can be used against you. When you have sensitive information in your hard deleted it still can be recovered, even after a hard drive format.
Unfortunately this is a double sword for you. To try and make data recovery impossible, I can only recommend a software called shredder. Just like our paper shredder, it does the same to your hard drive.
On a brighter side, data recovery will give you back that smile on your face only if you have recovered your lost vital data.
Some files are just irreplaceable like personal moments captured, no amount of money can console you for your family wedding, anniversary or funeral video or picture slide show. Go ahead and recover your file!
Email: [email protected] or follow me on Twitter @toneo1st
