Good program to recover deleted files when nothing has been written over them?

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compudocs

[H]ard|Gawd
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I accidently deleted a needed folder when I was cleaning up my backup hard drive and have not done anythign with the hard drive since. Is there a good, reliable program I can use to recover those files?
 
If you deleted them by way of the Recycle Bin and then emptied the Recycle Bin, you can use Recuva - first rule however is don't download it or install it directly on the drive you're looking to recover data from. Recuva can work in a 'portable' format and run directly off a USB stick since it's very tiny and runs from a folder.

My advice would be to download it on some other machine, do the installation (and install it to a directory in the Desktop folder, not Program Files), then just copy that folder to a USB stick or whatever, plug that stick into the machine where the files are and run it from there.

If you didn't use the Recycle Bin (used something like Shift-Delete or deleted from the command prompt) then you're going to have to use something more effective. Recuva can only recover files that did get sent to the Recycle Bin even if you emptied it afterward - it will not recover (it can't even "see") files that were deleted without that Recycle Bin step.

If it gets more serious, there's TestDisk but it's a more complicated app to use (can be run directly from a bootable CD, etc, but it's a console app aka "command prompt" aka "DOS" based utility).

After that then it becomes an issue of using more "serious" software I suppose.
 
If Recuva only works on items deleted from the recycle bin like Bahamut said, you may want to try Restoration (http://www.snapfiles.com/get/restoration.HTML). It's a very simple ~200KB freeware program that can run off a USB drive. It's really basic, but has saved data for me on a number of occasions.
 
If you happen to have Windows 7, be aware of Previous Versions. As that article states, it's also in Vista but not quite as straightforward in the Home editions. This is one of the better reasons to upgrade from WinXP that is not known nearly well enough.
 
Why shouldn't you run any of these programs from the HDD? Is it a issue of writing over the deleted files when you install the program? Does the same apply if you already have the program on the HDD?

Without getting OT, this Previous Versions feature of Win7, where is all of this old data stored?
 
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You can successfully recover deleted files from a PC,but it all depends on what has happened since the files were deleted.
When you delete files the data itself isn’t deleted, just the index entry that tells the system where the data for those files is located. The area containing the deleted data is also now marked as free space so it is available for any new files to be written there instead. As u said nothing is written after that u hav hundred percent chances of recovering data. U can try Data recovery Software , i hav personally used one such gud software called Kernel for FAT and NTFS, u can also download d latest version of software from http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Back-Up-and-Recovery/Kernel-FAT-and-NTFS.shtml
 
videobruce said:
Why shouldn't you run any of these programs from the HDD? Is it a issue of writing over the deleted files when you install the program??
Click to expand...

Yes...the installation could put the files for that installed program over the "free space" that was freed up when you deleted the now needed files, thus greatly diminishing your chances of economically recovering them.

*Deletion of files...doesn't really remove the files, just turns them into space which is seen as free and able to be written over.
*Installation of programs will write new files over free space...possibly the areas where your "deleted files" are.
*Other things like defragging your drive which re-arranges things can also make those deleted files go further buh-bye.
 
*Installation of programs will write new files over free space...possibly the areas where your "deleted files" are.
Click to expand...
I thought so. The other points I was already well aware of. ;)

I'd bet 75% of PC users are not aware of the above especially the part about deleted files.
 
Therefore, the best time to install Recuva is now, not later when you need it.
 
Install Recuva on another machine if you have another one handy, then just copy the folder to a USB stick, run it from there - that way you have it when required, it never really needs to be installed again (it can update into that folder as required if updates are available) and that's that.
 
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