Recovering "Permanently" Deleted Files

Z

Zoogle

Gawd
Joined
Oct 11, 2005
Messages
752
So I was cleaning off my keyboard today and I accidentally deleted my entire movie folder. Of course, given that there were about 100GB worth of ripped movies in there, Windows does me the courtesy of "permantly" deleting them. Is there any way I can get these files back? A program perhaps? DOS commands?

I'm very sad right now. Please help!

BTW, this is XP Pro SP2
 
System Restore, Start>Programs>Accessories> System Tools>System Restore. Go back to the nearest date. Hope that helps :)
 
Tried it already. It does take me back but only so far as to give me the file structure back, not the actual files. Basically, I get a bunch of empty folders with names on them :/.
 
Thanks for the suggestion pxc, I picked up both that and a similar program and its running off the CD drive right now. The files are slowly being copied to another drive :), I had to steal a relatively empty PATA drive from one of my other comps hehe...

We'll see sometime later tonite if the recovery went well. Transferring 140+ GB of movies and anime takes a long time :/.
 
Zoogle said:
Tried it already. It does take me back but only so far as to give me the file structure back, not the actual files. Basically, I get a bunch of empty folders with names on them :/.
Click to expand...

Yes, System Restore has a cap on the size of the files it can recover.

Technically, your files have not been deleted, only the references to them in the file structure. If nothing else, a data recovery company would be able to easily get your files back.

I assume that you want to wait for other suggestions before paying for a data recovery service, however. In that case, all I can recommend is that you use your computer as little as possible and do not install new software or download new files. Since the references to your files have been deleted, Windows will overwrite them as if they were empty sectors. The more you use the hard disk, the more sectors will be overwritten, possibly permamently corrupting some of your movie data.

Also, DO NOT RUN DEFRAG as this will probably overwrite most if not all of your files. Once the files have been overwritten, recovery is impossible.

To avoid something like this in the future:

1., Right-click on the Recycle Bin, click "properties", and move the drive usage slider to 100%. This will allow any file, no matter how big, to go into the Recycle Bin.

2. Unplug the keyboard before cleaning it.
 
Zoogle said:
Thanks for the suggestion pxc, I picked up both that and a similar program and its running off the CD drive right now. The files are slowly being copied to another drive :), I had to steal a relatively empty PATA drive from one of my other comps hehe...

We'll see sometime later tonite if the recovery went well. Transferring 140+ GB of movies and anime takes a long time :/.
Click to expand...

That's good. I figured there might be a utillity available somewhere to recover the data. As I said, it's not really gone, only the references to it in the file structure have been deleted.

Nevermind what I said about the data recovery service, then. They would only be able to do what the program you downloaded is doing right now - for a much higher fee.
 
Second the recommendation for EasyRecovery. Been using it for many years now, it's never failed to retrieve the data as long as there was no crosslinking, it wasn't overwritten (the usual result), and the hard drive had no physical damage (head crash, frozen motor bearing, etc).

Highly recommended for sheer ease of use, really. Works off bootable media you create after installation, recovers to many different types of external drives (USB, Firewire, etc, whatever your BIOS can recognize at boot), and made by Ontrack, the world's leader in data recovery.

No I am not an employee, just one damned satisfied customer that's been able to have happy customers himself when using EasyRecovery for them. :)
 
HOCP4ME said:
That's good. I figured there might be a utillity available somewhere to recover the data. As I said, it's not really gone, only the references to it in the file structure have been deleted.

Nevermind what I said about the data recovery service, then. They would only be able to do what the program you downloaded is doing right now - for a much higher fee.
Click to expand...

Hehe, thanks for the advice. This will be the last time I clean my keyboard while my comp is on, that's for sure. Also, I didn't know you could adjust the Recycle Bin's tolerance. I really appreciate that snippet!
 
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