Ack! The computer ate my term paper! We've all been there at some point. You delete an important file, somehow it skips your Recycle Bin altogether, and for all practical purposes, it's disappeared into the ether. But before you hit the big red panic button, there's 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.
Part I: The 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-on file recovery mode, make sure you double-check the folder you had saved it in and the Recycle Bin or Trash. Still nothing?
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 do as little computing as possible until you find the file you're looking for, since every time you save a new file—every time your computer writes information to your hard drive—your chances of recovering the file go down..
2. Find the Right File Recovery Program
Windows: You've a lot of really great freeware options for file recovery if you're running Windows. Notable apps includeUndelete Plus (original post), PC Inspector File Recovery (original post), andRestoration (original post). Undelete Plus is the most user-friendly option of the bunch, with advanced filtering options that make it easy to find your needle of a file among the haystack of deleted garbage, but in my tests I found both Restoration and PC Inspector File Recovery to be more effective at recovering files. (Of course, your mileage may vary.) As an added bonus, the bare bones Restoration is portable, which makes it an excellent addition to your thumb drive.
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Download of the Day: Recuva (Windows)
Windows only: Recover deleted files with Recuva, a new utility from the developers who brought you the venerable system-scouring tool CCleaner. Read…
UPDATE: Per several readers advice, you may also want to check out Recuva (original post), another freeware Windows file recovery tool.
Mac: If you're on a Mac and aren't afraid to lay down a few bucks in the name of data recovery, the $99 Data Rescue II is the go-to application for file recovery with a friendly graphical interface.
Download of the Day: PhotoRec
Cross platform, open source software PhotoRec is a data recovery tool designed to recover lost files from flash memory, hard disks, and CDRoms. Read…
All Platforms: If you're not afraid to crack open a terminal window or command prompt, the free, cross-platform command-line tool PhotoRec (original post) is a crack shot at recovering photos (as the name implies) as well as virtually any other file type from your removable media or hard drives.
3. Recover Your Files
Once you've picked a tool, it's time to scan your hard drive for your lost file or files. This process varies depending on the app you're 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're going to 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've 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.
Went through steps one through three and still aren't having any luck? It might be worth trying again with a different application, since there can be a lot of variation between apps. If you're still not having any luck, part two discusses a few other ways you can try addressing more specific problems when your data goes missing.
Part 2: More Specific Problems
Above you got 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.
Source : http://lifehacker.com
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