Community Newsletter: Q&A: Help! What can I do to retrieve deleted data?
- 4/12/07 4:45 PM
File Recovery Software
by stefonte - 3/30/07 10:01 PM In reply to: Help! What can I do to retrieve deleted data? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Wendy,
Sounds like the wiz kid installed a new operating system like XP and totally deleted all your personals. If this is the case you may be out of luck but if this is not the case then you just may need to purchase recovery software. I have used them before in the past and it works, it really goes to show you that nothing is ever erased. Recover My Files data recovery software will quickly and easily recover deleted files emptied from the Windows Recycle Bin, or lost due to the format or corruption of a hard drive, virus or trojan infection, unexpected system shutdown or software failure.
Good Luck
Hard Drive crash and External Back-up
by sperbejo - 4/9/07 4:49 PM In reply to: File Recovery Software by stefonteI sympathize with all who have lost data, and I have an aditional cautionary note. A month ago my HD crashed and I had to replace it. Smart me, I have an external hard drive and do a daily back-up. So when I finally got all the glitches worked out and loaded my programs, I discovered that while my data was backed up and restored, pictures were not. Not a tragedy, but three years of family photos were gone. So double check what is being backed up.
Lost files
by isk9 - 3/30/07 10:17 PM In reply to: Help! What can I do to retrieve deleted data? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
GONE!!!!
OH! OH! You have just discovered that you have accidentally deleted that file (picture, Word file, etc.), that you worked on for hours. Sometimes it is computer error, but most of the time it is operator error. As a rule the computer asks if you are sure that you want to delete that item. You’ve seen that message a million times, so you don’t read it, you click OK and it is gone. Or, it is late in the day, you are tired, you click on ‘Turn off computer.’ The computer warns you that you have an unsaved document – you ignore it – document is gone.
However there is hope that you can get it back.
Recycle Bin
The first place to look is the ‘Recycle Bin.’ Hopefully, you have not checked the ‘Do not move files…,’ the missing files should be here, and all you have to do is double click on the Recycle Bin icon, locate the file and then Right click on it and then click Restore.
To check the settings of your Recycle Bin Right click on it and then click Properties. If there is a check mark beside the ‘Do not move files…’ remove it. Set yourself a schedule to empty the Recycle Bin at least once a week, but take a look inside first. If there are any files that you are unsure about drag them onto the desktop, Empty the Recycle Bin, and then drag those files back into the Recycle Bin. If you use external hard drives, floppy disks, USB drives be aware that they DO NOT use the Recycle Bin so any file deletes from them IS deleted.
Backup
If you are one of those people who do Backups on a regular basis you may find that you have a backup of the missing file in your last backup.
Windows XP has a Backup program but it is not installed under a normal installation, it is hidden away on the installation disk.
Windows' Backup Utility: To back up your files manually in XP choose Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Backup. Users of XP Home Edition can install the program from the Windows CD: Look for it in the valueadd\msft\ntbackup folder, right-click the Ntbackup file, and choose Install. Be forewarned, however, that the utility's Automated System Recovery feature doesn't work in XP Home.
Another option is to download a copy of Paragon Disk Manager 8 (try the time limited free trial).
Many programs, such as Word, include an option to backup every file created. It is under Tools > Options > Save and check the Always create backup copy.
Can we still get it back?
The answer is – probably! When you delete a file Windows doesn’t actually remove the file, it only removes the reference to that file. That space is considered empty and is available for the next file to be written, so it is important to look for the ‘lost’ file as quickly as possible. The more files that have been added to the hard drive since the accidental deletion the greater the chance that the file has been overwritten.
Let’s see how easy it can be to recover a file that’s been removed accidentally. Start by downloading a data recovery tool called ‘FreeUndelete’ from: http://officerecovery.com/freeundelete/. Save it to your Desktop or to a folder called My Downloads. (Note the .exe extension, this means that this is a program. Once you double-click on it you have no control, until it has finished running. If you have even the faintest doubt as to the safety of this file – scan it with your anti-virus program before double-clicking.) Install it by Double clicking the icon and then follow the prompts. (It is a good idea to install this program now, before you have need of it. Installing after the fact might overwrite the very file you are trying to salvage.)
Recovered files cannot be saved to the drive which they are on so you need a second drive, internal or USB on which to save them.
From the Start menu go to All Programs > Freeundelete and Start the program, select the drive and click on Scan. FreeUndelete will search for fragments and files that it can piece together. The findings are displayed in a list in the center window, with info about file size and status (Good or better is hopeful). If FreeUndelete finds too many files you can change the filter setting by changing the file filter to read *.jpg, *.doc or whatever file extension is suitable. When your files are shown click on them then the Browse button and select the destination drive and save.
Wipe-Out
Now you realize that files are not always gone when you have deleted them. What do you do when you want to give your old computer away? What happens to sensitive information, financial passwords, etc., that you have deleted? As you have seen, there is a good chance that someone with a simple program could recover all your secrets.
Get rid of it, forever with Simple File Shredder .
The File Shredder overwrites the selected files a number of times, with random characters.
Simple File Shredder is a free download from: http://www.scar5.com/
Save it to your Desktop or to a folder called My Downloads. Scan for virus, double-click and follow the prompts.
From the Start menu go to All Programs > Scar5 Software > Simple File Shredder to open the program. Select the Files, or whole folders, that you want to get rid of and drag them into the main window. Click on the Shred Now button. A dialog box will ask which shredding method to use.
There are three levels of shredding:
the first uses a method recognized by the US Dept. of Defense and overwrites the data seven times,
the second is the Gutmann method and overwrites the data 35 times,
the third is an on-the-fly deletion based on one and three overwrites.
Gutmann is, obviously, the most secure (and the slowest).
Depending on how many files and which method you chose the process may take a while.
Data recovery
by robertofl - 3/30/07 10:35 PM In reply to: Help! What can I do to retrieve deleted data? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
You can get most or all your info back even if you did a reformat. There is a program called Easy Recovery Pro. I have used it often to recover data for people that have either crashed or deleated the file by mistake. Even after a reformat the image is still on the hard drive. Thats why so many people get into trouble. They have done a reformat and think all data has been erased. NOT TRUE. I did a persons computer one day where he had lost most of his data from a system crash. I ran recovery pro on it and found files that he had deleated back in 2003. Great program. Easy to use.There are a couple other programs that are better, but it takes a professional computer tech to run them. The first is, Recovery4all Professional the other is Virtual Labs Data Recovery Suite. I'm sure one of these programs can and will recover your lost data.
Recovery
by yjjiang - 3/30/07 11:00 PM In reply to: Help! What can I do to retrieve deleted data? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
OK, the first thing to do is make sure that the 'genius' who reformatted a bussiness machine with-out backing it up is never allowed near the computer again.
Secondly, don't use the computer. you want to stop writing anythig to the harddrive, so don't install anything, copy anything to the harddrive AT ALL, we need to preserve the data.
next you need to find out what kind of reformatt he/she did. if they did a harddrive "zero-ing" then the data is lost forever, if however they just reformatted, then you can recover it. the way, in basic terms, a computer stores data is very similar to a book, all the information is on the pages, but if you want to find a specic thing you look in the 'Table of Contents' or TOC, Harddrives also have one of these "TOC's" and use it to find where a specific file is. when you reformatt, (not zero) the hardrive, all the computer does is erase the TOC, not that data it's self. so it is still there, the computer just can't find it.
So, in order to fix this, we need a program that doesn't use the TOC to find files, but searches the whole harddrive. like fliping though and looking at every page of a book. you shouldn't install any programs on to the hard drive your trying to recover data from, because if you do, it will overwrite that old data that we're trying to recover. so you need to do one of the following:
A) find a CD-ROM bootable program to do it, eg... "Norton Ghost"
B) Install a program to recover the file onto a DIFFERENT partition from the one your trying to recover from. eg, if your trying to recover from C:/ then install the program onto D:/ only install a program onto the same partition as a LAST resort. there are alot of programs out there that can do this, Active@ File Recovery, PC INSPECTOR™ File Recovery, Norton Ghost will also.
C) some computer stores, and specialist will recover lost data for you you can take the Hardrive to them and ask.
Hope this has helped you in some way..
Regards, Dale.
How to get your lost data back
by Tommy211 - 3/30/07 11:06 PM In reply to: Help! What can I do to retrieve deleted data? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
If you have completely lost the data off your computer, then you need to get some Data Recovery Programs if it wasn't too long ago.
Some links are:
http://www.disklabs.com/uk/
http://www.recovermyfiles.com/
http://www.runtime.org/
http://www.discountdatarecovery.co.uk/googlelanding.htm?gclid=CNOw06usnosCFQ7UlAodA07pfg
http://www.pctools.com/file-recover/?ref=google_fr&gclid=CM2Z47OsnosCFRROQwodPRL2jw
http://www.getmecheaper.co.uk/data-recovery/data-recovery/Data-Recovery-Programmes?ai=comp76
Hope some of the links help you get your data back.
Tom Parker
Data Recovery SoftWare
by supermagician - 3/26/09 10:55 PM In reply to: How to get your lost data back by Tommy211Free email Data Recovery SoftWare (Mail-Cure) can recover EMail from a damaged dbx file or deleted dbx file or re-installed windows' drive. The mail fragment can be saved as EMaiL file. Mail-Cure supports Outlook Express and Foxmail format.
Even if the file name is lost by deleted or formatted, Mail-Cure can scan the lost EMail from hard drive.
Other powerful the <a href="http://derescue.com/Partition-recovery.html">partition recovery software </a>support (<a href="http://www.derescue.com/Deleted-files-recovery.html">Deleted File Recovery</a>,<a href="http://www.derescue.com/formatted-partition-reocvery.html">Formatted Data Recovery</a>, and <a href="http://www.derescue.com/lost-partitions-reocvery.html">Lost Partition Recovery</a>,<a href="http://www.derescue.com/GHOST-recovery.html">Ghost Recovery software</a>, ) you can
the <a href="http://www.derescue.com/Deleted-files-recovery.html">Deleted file Recovery </a> function can <a href="http://www.derescue.com/view-data.html">Find lost files find deleted files,Find deleted fodlers</a> from hard disk drive
Many Programs and Companies
by jimboscomp_com - 3/30/07 11:33 PM In reply to: Help! What can I do to retrieve deleted data? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I have done data recovery before on many computers being an owner of a local computer repair business. There are MANY programs out there that will retrieve data after the hard drive has been formatted. If the drive was formatted twice, there is a less likely chance of retrieving the data. Companies such as the Diskeeper corporation offer Undelete, and then there's one I recently used on a hard drive that had a bad motor called Get Back Data; it recovered over 98% of the files, and the ones that weren't recovered were just system files that didn't need to be recovered. There is also a company in San Francisco, CA called Drive Savers. If anyone can retrieve data it will be them. Search around, try out some programs to see if they can look into the old partition of the drive prior to the format.
LOST FILES
by ysgubor - 3/31/07 12:45 AM In reply to: Help! What can I do to retrieve deleted data? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
HI WENDY J,I HAVE PURCHASED SOME SOFTWARE CALLED "MEDIA RECOVERY" IT COST ME ABOUT £10 (20$).IT CAN RECOVER MOST FILES INCLUDING PHOTOS BUT YOU MUST ACT QUICK BEFORE YOU OVERWRITE THE HARD DRIVE TO MANY TIMES.IT CAN RESTORE DAMAGED FILES.WHEN YOU SET IT UP IT TAKES SOMETIME TO SCAN WHAT EVER DRIVE YOU CHOOSE,THEN YOU CAN BREAKDOWN THE FILES YOU WANT RESTORED BY TYPE OR SIZE.I HOPE THIS IS OF SOME HELP......FRANKY C. WALES UK.
recovering lost data due to accidental erasure, formatting
by malachikabara - 3/31/07 1:27 AM In reply to: Help! What can I do to retrieve deleted data? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
download recovermyfiles from support.getdata.com, run the setup. continue
undelete files on PC
by orrtec - 3/31/07 1:55 AM In reply to: Help! What can I do to retrieve deleted data? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
below is the name of some undelete software.
R-UNDELETE
Copyright(c) 2001-2002 R-tools Technology Inc.
I have used this software on many occasions for myself, familly or customers.
It nearly always works providing the disk in question has not been written to to many times. try it.
Simply & basic
by ZillionDoux - 3/31/07 2:21 AM In reply to: Help! What can I do to retrieve deleted data? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
wha! too bad !
Get to the restore point before the talent guy clean up all of your valuable pictures, data forms & etc..
Well good luck to you......:-)
Restore does not work with data
by Cinza - 4/6/07 7:11 PM In reply to: Simply & basic by ZillionDouxLook at the instructions for the utility. It does not backup data and does not restore data to a previous state--only computer configuration.
Do not count on "System Restore" to back up or recover data.
Bad news
by ZillionDoux - 3/31/07 2:24 AM In reply to: Help! What can I do to retrieve deleted data? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
If he refomats your HD and all you've got to do is construct it again.
Install the software
by Prateek_Shr - 3/31/07 2:45 AM In reply to: Help! What can I do to retrieve deleted data? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
1. Install 'Recover My Files' software by just going on www.recovermyfiles.com
2. Go to Control Panel. Open Folder Options. Click on the View tab. Tick 'Display the contents of system folders' and untick 'Hide protected operating system files'.
Then just go to your destination data where you stored your data and double-click System Volume Information. Search your lost data.
(Caution: Do not delete any of the file/folder)
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