May/may not be a daft question - I accidentally deleted quite a few files, not essential ones but a lot of stuff that would be a hassle to get again. Is there any software to recover partially/entirely all of them? Haven't turned PC off since I did it, if that helps. And I'm using Windows (XP).
Yes though I personally use Qutek File Scavenger and have done for 6 years Bear in mind though the files you seek may have been renamed or irrevocably damaged. The search will take some time but once it's done it is just a case of finding the most likely candidates and then restoring them to som form of portable storage or different drive.
I'd actually just downloaded Recuva before checking this, hopefully it will work well as the files are on a separate drive to windows/programs so nothing will have been overwritten. Doing a deep scan just to be safe, estimated time is 3 hours! While there were a lot of files and they took up a lot of space (several hundred gb) they were all in one folder that still exists so hopefully it should be fairly straight forward. Somehow I've never needed to do data recovery before hence I didn't know anything about it, though thought files would be overwritten rather than 'deleted'. Would damage occur even if the files are on a separate drive to windows?
Damage would occur no matter what drive they were on - what happens is the file does not get destroyed immediately but makes a first stop in purgatory. It is during this time the file can be recovered and achieve salvation, or be overwritten by a new file and sent to the depths of hell! So basically if there is any file activity, such as copying across the the same drive as the dleted files, then there is a risk the file would occupy the allocated space Also bear in mind not all save activity is visible (page file as one example) so even if you don't think you put mor files there, the system could be doing it without your knowledge.
Damage will occur any time new data is written to the free space where the old files used to be stored. As long as that drive has seen no activity you should be fine.
If its a drive that is separate from your main drive and you haven't written any new data to it, you should be fine! -Disjaukifa
You shouldn't recover it to the same drive, either. You need another drive. I use the active@ software range, have done for years. A lot of the packages out there will do the job, though.
Looks like it was all fine, everything is recovered without problems. Lost all folder structures but it gives me an excuse to sort everything out, god knows it needed it. Only problem is I lost a small amount of files as I ran out of space on my other drive (recovered them to my windows drive) so am shuttling a few files back and then I'll try recovering them again. Will the program have made a note of those files I've already recovered anyone know? So I can easily identify what I'm currently missing.
Well first of all thats great that you got the files back!!! As or your second question I honestly don't remember, I've only had to use that program once and it was about 4 months back but I remember that it worked well . . -Disjaukifa
What do you mean by shuttling back? DO NOT put anything on the drive you're recovering from, as stated before it could overwrite the files! It's not going to go, "Oh, he's already got a deleted file with that name, I'll just put it there." It'll overwrite the first bit of unallocated space, regardless of what already occupies it! Imagine your hard drive is a huge pile of storage bins. Your files are bits of paper. Some will fit in one storage bin. Some will fit in several. You never mix files in one storage bin - waste the remaining space and use a new storage bin. The FAT is a ring binder with a list of what files are in what bins, written in pencil. "Deleting" a file is rubbing out the file from the binder list. It's still there, you just don't know where. Now let's say your process for storing a new file is to grab the first bin that isn't listed in the binder, empty it out into an incinerator, then fill it and alter the binder listing. Your old file is gone. The recovery software basically looks in all the unlisted bins and determines what's what. To save files, it needs "empty" bins, and again it's going to trash the contents first. If they were bins you were going to recover from, too late!
I think he means he is cancelling the pgoram with a partial recovery and will undelete the rest when he has space to do so
Yes that is what I understood for him comments as well, however I don't think the software will remember the undeleted items he has already found, I think he will have to do the entire process again, which is time consuming but its the only way to get the deleted information back. -Disjaukifa
I should have mentioned they are files I'm not fussed about, a couple of un-recovered files were corrupt after putting stuff back to the original drive but like I say no real loss. The solution would be to get a new PSU for my external drive but I was too lazy! Recuva did remember the files I'd already recovered.
