Most of us will openly admit that we have
unintentionally deleted a file on our computer, camera, USB drive or any other
digital device. There exist a number of ways to restore the deleted/permanently
deleted files.
It’s important to note that most of the files
deleted (normal deleting not permanent deleting or using shift+delete keys) from the local hard drive of your computer
usually reside in the recycle bin and can be easily restored. Unluckily
restoration-from-the -recycle method doesn’t work for external USB drives, USB
flash drives, memory sticks, or mapped drives. Luckily there’s another way to
recover deleted files.
This article discusses use of two pieces of free
software: Recuva and Diskdigger
Restore that File or Photo using Recuva
The first piece of software that you’ll want
to try is called Recuva, and it’s extremely easy to use—just make sure when you
are installing it, that you don’t accidentally install that stupid Yahoo!
toolbar that nobody wants.
Now that you’ve installed the software, and
avoided an awful toolbar installation, launch the Recuva wizard and let’s start
through the process of recovering those pictures you shouldn’t have deleted.
The first step on the wizard page will let you
tell Recuva to only search for a specific type of file, which can save a lot of
time while searching, and make it easier to find what you are looking for.
Next you’ll need to specify where the file
was, which will obviously be up to wherever you deleted it from. Since I
deleted mine from my camera’s SD card, that’s where I’m looking for it.
The next page will ask you whether you want to
do a Deep Scan. My recommendation is to not select this for the first scan,
because usually the quick scan can find it. You can always go back and run a
deep scan a second time.
And now, you’ll see all of the pictures
deleted from your drive, memory stick, SD card, or wherever you searched. Looks
like what happened in Vegas didn’t stay in Vegas after all…
If there are a really large number of results,
and you know exactly when the file was created or modified, you can switch to
the advanced view, where you can sort by the last modified time. This can help
speed up the process quite a bit, so you don’t have to look through quite as
many files.
At this point, you can right-click on any
filename, and choose to Recover it, and then save the files elsewhere on your
drive. This is really cool!
Download
Recuva from piriform.com
Restore that File or Photo using DiskDigger
Update: it looks like since we first wrote about this, DiskDigger
became shareware, which gives you a prompt for every file you save. It’s up to
you whether you want to try it—best bet, try Recuva first. You could
alternatively use the slightly older, but still totally free, portable version
of the application from portablefreeware.com.
If you don’t have any luck with Recuva, you
can always try out DiskDigger, another excellent piece of
software. I’ve tested both of these applications very thoroughly, and found
that neither of them will always find the same files, so it’s best to have both
of them in your toolkit.
Note that DiskDigger doesn’t require
installation, making it a really great tool to throw on your PC repair Flash
drive.
Start off by choosing the drive you want to
recover from…
Now you can choose whether to do a deep scan,
or a really deep scan. Just like with Recuva, you’ll probably want to select
the first one first. I’ve also had much better luck with the regular scan,
rather than the “dig deeper” one.
If you do choose the “dig deeper” one, you’ll
be able to select exactly which types of files you are looking for, though
again, you should use the regular scan first.
Once you’ve come up with the results, you can
click on the items on the left-hand side, and see a preview on the right.
You can select one or more files, and choose
to restore them. It’s pretty simple!
The task of file recovery is not limited to
the software pieces discussed above. There are other commercial software worth
trying which include;
Digital
Rescue Premium
Advanced
Disk Recovery
Recover My
Files
Data Recovery
Wizard
Total Recall
Handy Recovery
Windows Data Recovery
Written by thecodewhiz
Thecodewhiz is a tech savvy internet enthusiast,Designer,ICT Support Specialist, amatuer Dj and Photographer who loves sharing information.Find Technology tips and tricks and more here...
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