Recovering deleted files

I've used various things, but never been very happy with the result, pictures with changed dimensions, music files with clicks, pops or just silence, documents with huge gaps, or bits of other documents, or sometime just complete gibberish! You might want to see what PC WORLD charge, as I seem to remember that they off such a service and at least if it doesn't work you have someone to complain to!!!

I used the free offering from http://www.softperfect.com/

I only needed to use it once and as far as I can remember it did the job I asked of it

Neil

quote:

You might want to see what PC WORLD charge, as I seem to remember that they off such a service and at least if it doesn't work you have someone to complain to!!!

They are the ones that lost my files.

http://www.recuva.com/

-always backup critical files

-if you have a major failure/data loss, don't boot the OS drive. put it in another PC as a slave and use the recovery utility from the PC. Windows has a habit of overwriting once-used sectors.

quote:

Originally posted by BigH47:

quote:

You might want to see what PC WORLD charge, as I seem to remember that they off such a service and at least if it doesn't work you have someone to complain to!!!

They are the ones that lost my files.

All the more reason to get them to sort it out! Demand they do it for free and compensate you!

Similar answer to the one i gave on the restoring photos thread:

I would try and avoid saving anything to the affected drive until you attempt to restore the files, as once you write over the space the files occupied you'll have almost certainly lost them.

I'm not sure how Windows uses swapspace, ie a dedicated contiguous area of drive, or random areas of drive, so it may even be best not to use the machine at all for fear of the files being overwritten.

Someone who knows more than i do about how this works may be able to provide more detail...

Good luck.

Phil

ps anyone remember 'undelete' on Dos 5/6?

Winundelete is available but on trial version it can't actually 'restore' the file so I can't tell how efefctive it is and I hate wasting money on software that turns out to be sh*t - as so much is...

I'll try a couple of the freeware options

Thanks all

quote:

-if you have a major failure/data loss, don't boot the OS drive. put it in another PC as a slave and use the recovery utility from the PC. Windows has a habit of overwriting once-used sectors.

If you can get a copy of a Knoppix live cd or something like it via another machine you may well then be able to boot into the offending machine with the live cd and save a few files. All done with the aid of free and open source software.

Machine is fine, I just want to recover a file I deleted

quote:

Originally posted by NeilM:
I used the free offering from http://www.softperfect.com/

I only needed to use it once and as far as I can remember it did the job I asked of it

Neil

Seems to be working so far -

Thanks y'all

DimDiccus

There is also a Free Download from Computer Active in the latest edition File recover

quote:

Originally posted by JamieWednesday:
Machine is fine, I just want to recover a file I deleted

Jamie are using a PC?

If so try systems restore.

Hope this helps

Chris N

If so try systems restore.

System restore refers to registry. It will not recover files or documents so don't bother going down that road.

Final Recovery

http://downloads.zdnet.co.uk/0,1000000375,39125766s,00.htm

is worth the money if you're really stuck. I've used it many times with great success.

Let us know how you make out.

Jim