It is difficult to find a user who has never had to bite their elbows, for example, after accidentally deleting an important document from a disk or an interesting photo from a memory card - this can happen in the hustle and bustle, or simply due to banal absent-mindedness. Of course, removed from hard drive bring the file back to life in the usual way using Windows no problem - you just need to restore it from the trash. However, the Recycle Bin is more or less regularly emptied by special cleaning utilities, and data is often deleted bypassing the Recycle Bin using the Shift + Del key combination (in order to save time and space) - in this case, restore an accidentally deleted file from the Recycle Bin Windows tools It won't work anymore. As for deleting files from USB drives and memory cards, they do not go into the recycle bin at all - which means that it is impossible to restore them using the built-in Windows tools. And finally, accidentally deleting files is not the only way to lose valuable information. You can lose important data in other ways: as a result of a system failure, incorrect operations of a particular program, exposure to viruses, formatting a disk, deleting a partition, etc. In all these cases, Windows tools will not be able to “revive” the files.
So, should you immediately rush to a data recovery specialist when you lose your files? It is not at all necessary if you have a reliable utility to recover accidentally deleted and lost files. As a rule, with its help you can restore at least part of the information without any problems. The main thing is not to waste time and follow certain rules of the game.
In a nutshell about file loss and recovery
You shouldn’t immediately give up on accidentally deleted files, although they, for example, are not displayed in the corresponding Explorer folder and are not in the Recycle Bin. In fact deleted files still remain on the media, since when they are deleted using the operating system, the files are not physically destroyed. It is not the body of the file that is deleted, but only its header; while the clusters in which it was written are simply marked empty and can be read until they are overwritten by new data. That is why deleted documents, presentations, pictures, etc. can be recovered using specialized utilities.
Recovering lost files is also possible in a number of other situations. For example, after a quick hard formatting disk - after all, with such a procedure, information about the initial recording of allocated files is reset (for example, in NTFS - in the MFT area), and all other areas of the disk remain unchanged. Some utilities can also recover data from disks that have a damaged file allocation table, a deleted data partition, etc.
However, it would be reckless to say unequivocally that any file (even just deleted from the recycle bin) can always be restored. Alas, this is not the case, and failure is largely due to incorrect user actions. The fact is that any computer activity on a disk from which data was accidentally deleted can lead to the fact that the clusters in which fragments of the corresponding files are located will be overwritten, because operating system now perceives them as empty. After this, restoring the corresponding files will be more than problematic. Of course, with partial overwriting, a number of utilities restore such files, but it is not at all a fact that such files can then be used (the exception is text documents, with individual saved fragments of which it will be possible to work in the future). As for pictures, music, videos and other things restored after partial re-recording, this is usually futile. That is why, first of all, it is necessary to prevent the possibility of overwriting clusters - that is, do not write anything to hard section disk, flash drive or memory card with lost data, otherwise the chances of returning lost information to life will be minimal.
In addition, the possibility of recovering lost data may be associated with a number of circumstances that are no longer dependent on the user at the time of recovery. Thus, the chances of success are higher when recovering files from media formatted in file system NTFS, not FAT. The success of restoring a particular file also largely depends on the degree of its fragmentation: if the file is highly fragmented, then one can only hope (and even then with reservations) for its recovery NTFS system, but on media with FAT, it’s most likely pointless. Naturally, for this reason, it is especially difficult to recover very large, frequently overwritten files on a heavily filled disk, which, due to circumstances, as a rule, always turn out to be highly fragmented.
It is also worth adding that none of the programs will be able to recover data after guaranteed destruction of information using specialized solutions, as well as low-level formatting.
How to recover files
The most important thing is to start recovering accidentally deleted and lost files as quickly as possible (ideally, immediately after deleting the file), although in practice there are often cases of recovering even long-lost data. However, there is no guarantee that the document you need will be among these invisible “long-livers”, so you should not hesitate.
First, you need to stop any computer activity on the media of interest, since the operating system can write some other data in place of deleted or lost files (even if you yourself did not write anything down at all), run the utility installed on your computer to recover lost files and scan it carrier. The situation becomes more complicated when it comes to data recovery on system disk, to which the system writes something all the time. In this case, it is best to remove HDD with deleted files and connect it to another computer as a secondary one, and only after that begin the recovery process.
As a rule, the default tools in the corresponding tools are a quick scan, carried out by analyzing file records. If during such an analysis the required file cannot be found (this is possible if the disk has been formatted, the partition has been deleted, etc.), then it makes sense to resort to advanced analysis. With this analysis, a deep scan of the disk is carried out with a complete scan of all sectors - it takes more time, but can be more effective. In order to speed up the process, you can resort to limiting the search area by data type (images, documents, etc.), file name, etc.
Under no circumstances should you restore data to a scanned disk, although in a number of solutions this is possible (again, due to the danger of overwriting the sectors of interest). Therefore, usually the recovered data is saved to another hard drive, another hard drive partition, or a flash drive.
Before you begin any data recovery efforts, you should consider the possibility that the loss of files may also be caused by a physical malfunction of the device. Most of the solutions discussed in this article will not be able to help in this case, and the process of recovering information in such situations requires certain professional knowledge and experience. In addition, further work with a faulty device may make it completely impossible to recover important folders and files from it. Therefore, in case of loss of critical information, it is wiser to abandon independent experiments and immediately contact specialists.
Utilities for recovering lost files
Until recently, utilities for recovering lost files were among the few categories where the bulk were very expensive commercial products, the capabilities of which are completely incomparable to what affordable, let alone free, utilities can offer. Now the picture has changed noticeably, and today home users, if they wish, can easily find effective programs on the market with which they can not only easily restore accidentally deleted folders and files, but also to bring back to life data lost as a result of quickly formatting a disk, deleting a partition, etc. It is these - affordable or even free solutions for restoring folders and files - that will be discussed in this article.
MiniTool Power Data Recovery 6.6
Developer: MiniTool Solution Ltd
Distribution size: 5.64 MB
Work under control: Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008/7
Distribution method: shareware (http://www.powerdatarecovery.com/download.html)
Price: Commercial license - $119; Personal license - $59; Free Edition - free (allows you to recover no more than 1 GB of data; only for personal or home use)
MiniTool Power Data Recovery is a comprehensive solution for data recovery from hard drives(IDE, SATA, SCSI, USB), memory cards, flash drives, CD/DVD and Blue-ray disks, iPod and other storage media. The program supports FAT12/16/32, VFAT and NTFS file systems and can recover files deleted from Windows Recycle Bin, find and recover lost data (due to a virus attack, power failure, accidental formatting, partition deletion, etc.). Additionally, you can use this tool to recover data from damaged hard drives, as well as damaged, scratched, or defective CD/DVDs.
MiniTool Power Data Recovery includes five built-in data recovery modules: Undelete Recovery, Damaged Partition Recovery, Lost Partition Recovery, Digital Media Recovery and CD & DVD Recovery (Fig. 1). Each one focuses on different data loss scenarios. The Undelete Recovery module is designed to recover files and folders deleted from the Recycle Bin or using the Shift+Del combination. Works with hard and flash drives, as well as memory cards. Damaged Partition Recovery tool allows you to recover lost data from existing but damaged or formatted partitions. Partitions with MBR and dynamic disks: Simple Volume, Spanned Volume, Stripped Volume and RAID-5 Volume. The Lost Partition Recovery module is used to recover data from a deleted or lost (for example, as a result of disk repartition) partition. The Digital Media Recovery module recovers data from digital multimedia devices (flash drives, flash cards, memory cards, iPods, etc.) and is focused on recovering lost or deleted photos(including in RAW format), music (mp3 files, MP4 files) and video files. The CD & DVD Recovery module is used to recover lost and deleted files from damaged, scratched or defective CD/DVD discs. This module works with various types CD/DVD (CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD-R and DVD-RW), supports multi-session discs, some UDF discs (written using DirectCD, InCD, packetCD) and can restore data from RW disks formatted using quick format.
Rice. 1. MiniTool Power Data Recovery window
with five built-in modules
Despite the lack of Russian-language localization, it is not difficult to understand the nuances of recovering deleted and lost files in this utility, since all operations are performed under the control step-by-step wizard. For example, in simple case- when recovering accidentally deleted files - just activate the Undelete Recovery module, specify the device to be scanned (Fig. 2) and click the button Recover, after which the program will immediately display a list of found folders and files. In most modules, scanning can be quick or full, the latter takes more time but is also more effective. Folders and files found during the analysis are marked with icons in the form of a cross, a question, or exclamation point- a cross serves to indicate accidentally deleted files, and other icons indicate lost data and RAW files, respectively (Fig. 3). Images and text files can be viewed directly from the utility before recovery.
Rice. 2. Run disk analysis for deleted files
Rice. 3. Presentation of scan results
in MiniTool Power Data Recovery
Auslogics File Recovery 3.3
Developer: Auslogics Software Pty Ltd
Distribution size: 3.69 MB
Work under control: Windows XP(SP2 and above)/2003/Vista/7/2008
Distribution method: shareware (15-day demo version that allows you to recover no more than ten files no larger than 100 KB in size - http://www.auslogics.com/ru/software/file-recovery/download/)
Price:$49.95 (in the Allsoft.ru store - 990 rubles)
Auslogics File Recovery (formerly Auslogics Emergency Recovery) is a program for recovering accidentally deleted files, as well as files lost due to viruses or system failures. Using this utility, you can recover documents, music, photos and any other files from hard drives, floppy drives, USB drives and flash memory cards. At the same time, you can recover not only files accidentally deleted in the usual way, but also files lost during deletion of a disk partition or quick formatting. As additional functionality, the utility includes tools for guaranteed data deletion and creation of disk images.
Recovery in Auslogics File Recovery is carried out under the guidance of a wizard (Fig. 4) and does not require any effort from the user (it is enough to decide on the media, file types, analysis option and, if necessary, set restrictions on the search area). The program has two scanning options: normal and deep (it is very long) - with deep scanning, it is possible to recover files lost after a quick formatting of the disk. To speed up the scanning process, you can resort to limiting files by type, setting up an exception list that includes files and folders that will be ignored during scanning, etc. Files found during the search are displayed in the main program window, indicating the program’s “opinion” regarding their status ( Fig. 5). The structure and names of folders, as well as file names, are displayed unchanged even during a deep scan for lost data. You can preview files - pictures, photographs, videos, text and PDF documents.
Rice. 4. Configuring settings for searching for lost files
in Auslogics File Recovery
Rice. 5. Result of disk scanning by the program
Auslogics File Recovery
Handy Recovery 5.5
Developer: SoftLogica
Distribution size: 2 MB
Work under control: Windows 95/98/NT/2000/Me/XP/2003/Vista/7
Distribution method: shareware (30-day demo version that allows you to recover one file per day - http://www.handyrecovery.com/download.shtml)
Price: 49 dollars, in the Softkey store - 950 rubles. (we are talking about the latest Russian-language version of Handy Recovery 4.0)
Handy Recovery is a convenient utility for recovering lost files. The program supports FAT12/16/32/64(ExFAT) and NTFS/NTFS 5 file systems and can recover data from a hard drive or other storage media, including CompactFlash, SmartMedia, MultiMedia and SecureDigital memory cards. The range of recoverable files covers a variety of formats: MS Office documents, archive files, email databases (Outlook and Eudora), photos, music and video files, etc. At the same time, you can recover not only accidentally deleted files (deleted from the recycle bin, deleted bypassing the recycle bin) , but also files damaged as a result of virus attacks and crashes, and files from deleted or formatted volumes. In addition to this, the utility provides the ability to create exact disk images for delayed recovery.
In Handy Recovery, the developers have implemented two scanning modes: standard (produced by analyzing file records and helps to recover deleted files if these records were not damaged) and extended, which allows you to find even data when the information in file records has been partially overwritten or damaged. Scanning in standard mode starts automatically immediately after starting the utility (Fig. 6); at the end of the process, a list of identified folders and files will be displayed in the program window; For convenience, lost files and folders are marked with a red cross (Fig. 7). For each file, the probability of its successful recovery is indicated. The contents of a number of files (Word and Excel documents, graphic and text files, archives) can be viewed before restoration in the preview window. As for advanced scanning, it is resorted to in cases where, after analyzing the disk, the files of interest were not found. With such scanning, you can search for strictly defined types of files (for example, images), lost file records, and also conduct a more thorough analysis of data deleted from the recycle bin (with a standard search, some of such data may not be found). The structure of the found folders and file names based on the scan results are displayed unchanged.
Rice. 6. Run disk analysis in Handy Recovery
Rice. 7. Display of data found during analysis
in Handy Recovery
Recuva 1.43
Developer: Piriform Ltd
Distribution size: 2.44 MB
Work under control: Windows 98/2000/XP/2003/Vista/7
Distribution method: commercialware (http://www.piriform.com/recuva/download)
Price: Business - $34.95; Home - $24.95; Free - free
Recuva is a very easy-to-use file recovery utility from the developers of popular solutions such as CCleaner and Defraggler. This tool allows you to recover photos, documents, music files, videos, etc. in FAT (including ExFAT) and NTFS file systems from hard drives, as well as from any rewritable media (flash drives, external hard drives, memory cards, etc.). Using this utility, you can recover accidentally deleted files, return files that were deleted as a result of system errors, failures or virus attacks, and also try to recover files from formatted or damaged disks. Additionally, the program can be used to ensure guaranteed data deletion. In addition to the standard edition, the utility has a portable edition, which can be installed on a flash drive or external hard disk.
By default, the file recovery process is carried out under the guidance of a wizard (if desired automatic start the wizard is easy to disable) - fig. 8; using the wizard allows you to narrow the search area, limiting yourself to only searching for images, music, documents, etc. The scan can be quick or deep. Deep scanning reveals large quantity files “buried” on the analyzed disk, but also takes much more time. If necessary, advanced users can switch to the advanced operating mode and produce more fine tuning search parameters - use a filter by file type to narrow the search area, enable folder structure restoration, etc. Upon completion of the scan, a list of deleted files is displayed in the main program window (Fig. 9); Each file found is marked in green, yellow or red (the color indicates the chances of recovery). In advanced mode, the program additionally shows details about the file, an image thumbnail, and an assessment of the quality of the restoration.
Rice. 8. Run disk analysis in Recuva
Rice. 9. Result of searching files via Recuva
Pandora Recovery 2.1.1
Developer: Pandora Corp.
Distribution size: 3.11 MB
Work under control: Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista
Distribution method: freeware (http://www.pandorarecovery.com/download/)
Price: for free
Pandora Recovery is a simple utility for recovering files in a variety of formats: photos, music, videos, documents, etc. The program supports FAT16/32, NTFS, NTFS5 and NTFS/EFS file systems and allows you to recover data from local, network drives and flash drives. It is possible to recover accidentally deleted files, as well as lost ones (if the MFT record was repeatedly overwritten by the OS, the disk is formatted, the file allocation table is damaged or is missing). In addition to the free standard edition of the utility, there is a commercial portable edition of Pandora Mobile Recovery, distributed on 1 GB flash drives ($19.95 per disc). It does not require installation and can be launched directly from a USB drive.
File recovery, as a rule, is carried out under the guidance of a step-by-step wizard, and this process does not cause any difficulties, especially since the wizard starts automatically when the program is loaded. To start the search, you need to specify the disk and select the file search method (Fig. 10) - there are three options here: search for all deleted files, search for deleted files taking into account the file name, its size and date of creation/modification, or a full scan of the disk (Deep scan ). The latter option is used to search for data on disks with a corrupted file allocation table, recently formatted disks, etc. Unfortunately, with such a search, file names and paths are not restored, only certain types of files are detected (images of the most common formats, MS Office documents, MP3 files, PDF documents and ZIP archives), and the scanning itself takes much longer . Additionally, this method only works on unfragmented files. Found deleted and lost files are marked with red crosses, while the names of files with partially or completely overwritten clusters are displayed in red, the names of encrypted (EFS) files in green, and compressed files in blue (Fig. 11). In addition, the program provides an assessment of the success of recovery of detected data in the form of an overwrite percentage: the higher the percentage, the less chance of successful recovery. Before recovery, you can view images of popular formats and text files.
Rice. 10. Run disk analysis in Pandora Recovery
Rice. 11. Result of searching files through Pandora Recovery
Testing utilities
It was very interesting to try to evaluate in practice various programs recovery of lost data in terms of scanning speed and efficiency in identifying deleted and lost files, which is what we tried to do. To do this, all the utilities in question were installed on one of the hard drive partitions, and a 3.7 GB flash drive was allocated for the experiment. This flash drive was among the working ones, and therefore contained certain information - in particular, a lot of software distributions, drivers, etc. In one of the driver folders there was a Chipset folder, which included six subfolders with numerous subfolders and 914 files with a total volume of 176 MB. It was this folder that was selected as one of the test folders (of course, the contents of the folder for further analysis and comparison were copied to the hard drive in advance).
After that, the flash drive was formatted in the FAT32 file system using the built-in Windows tools so that nothing was left on it. Then the Delete_files folder, previously prepared on the hard drive, was copied to the flash drive, including 50 files with a total volume of 66.8 MB. The files were in a variety of formats, including Word documents, Excel tables, PowerPoint presentations, PDF files, ZIP, RAR and 7z archives, images (JPEG, TIFF, RAW, etc.), applications, music (MP3, WAV, MID), ISO images, SWF files, AVI videos etc. Then all files from the Delete_files folder were deleted, bypassing the trash (Shift + Del). After this, we conducted the first experiment on information recovery by each of software solutions. The results are presented in the table.
At the next stage, in order to complicate the task, five new files with a total volume of 78.4 MB were written to the root directory of the flash drive. Obviously, the last operation should have significantly worsened the recovery results (compare the volumes of deleted and newly written files - 66.8 and 78.4 MB), since there is a high probability that a considerable part of the clusters in which the deleted files were originally located ended up partially overwritten when copied with other data. Then we subjected the experimental media to analysis by each of the utilities discussed in the article to search for accidentally deleted files (the Delete_files folder), and then, to the extent possible, we tried to recover the deleted files. Finally, we conducted an experiment to identify lost files and folders (Chipset folder).
Based on the testing results, it is clear that any of the utilities discussed can be successfully used to recover newly deleted data. And it is equally obvious that the result of restoring such files after writing to disk new information with an impressive volume (that is, when some of the sectors were overwritten) is disappointing. All this only confirms the most important recovery rule: do not write anything to the media and generally stop any work with it immediately after an emergency.
As for recovering files and folders lost after formatting, the results are mixed. The MiniTool Power Data Recovery Free Edition and Handy Recovery programs coped with the task best, but using Recuva utilities for these purposes, and even more so Pandora Recovery, turned out to be problematic due to the lack of folder structure and file names in their scanning reports. In addition, in Pandora Recovery the situation is further aggravated by the fact that the list of formats supported during Deep scanning is quite limited. Although you shouldn’t discount these programs anyway - these are some of the best free software products in their class, which are very easy to use and do an excellent job of restoring “freshly deleted” files.
Conclusion
Gone are the days when you always had to turn to professionals to recover lost files and this undertaking cost a very large sum. Today, there are many fairly easy-to-use utilities on the market that allow you to return files that were accidentally deleted or lost as a result of a computer failure, virus attack, or other computer disaster. Some solutions are offered at affordable prices for home users or are free for non-commercial use. Therefore, in simple situations when it comes to accidental deletion or loss of files, for example, as a result of quick formatting, it makes sense to restore the data yourself. But if the cause of file loss is damage to the hard drive at a mechanical or electronic level, then you should not experiment - it is better to entrust the data recovery operation to professionals.
When restoring on your own, you should act wisely and take care in advance that such a cataclysm does not take you by surprise. In other words, you should keep at hand (that is, on the disk in installed form) a couple of suitable utilities and, if possible, resort to data recovery as soon as possible in compliance with all mandatory rules (exclude the possibility of writing other data to the storage medium, save recovered files to another carrier, etc.). In addition, if you fail with one utility, be sure to give another a chance - their media scanning algorithms differ, so it is possible that the second utility will be more successful. And finally, do not forget that not a single solution, even the most expensive and powerful one, guarantees absolute success, and therefore no one has canceled the backup of valuable data.
Almost every person has at least once encountered the problem of accidentally deleted files from their computer. Sometimes this does not pose a problem, but there are times when the lost document contained very important information, and its loss can cause job loss and many other problems. Fortunately, modern programs provide the ability to solve this problem and restore files in the shortest possible period of time.
Before you despair and search desperately necessary programs To restore files, you need to look at the contents of the “Trash” - a special section of the computer where all deleted materials go.
Typically, its icon can be found on the desktop. After reviewing the contents of the recycle bin, you can examine all the files located here and restore the desired document with just one click.
It is worth remembering that the recovered data is displayed in the folder from which it was previously deleted. If the user does not remember where the necessary information was previously located, it can be found using “Search”, which is located in the left corner of the screen in the “Start” menu.
But, there are times when a document is permanently deleted from the computer. This:
- Sedum basket;
- Deleting a document using the Shift+Delete combination.
Recovering files from a computer after the above steps is somewhat more difficult; for this you need to use special programs that can be found on the Internet. Such utilities can be used not only to work with a computer, but also to restore lost information on media.
What are the best programs to use to recover lost files on your computer?
Today, there are a huge number of programs that allow you to restore files that have been deleted from your computer. With their help, you can return not only documents, but also films, as well as data of any other formats.
Among the most common utilities, it is worth noting Recuva. This special program, which is freely available in, and downloading it is quite simple.
Working with the program is very simple:
- After downloading, a window will appear on your computer desktop asking you to click the “OK” button to continue working.
- Then another dialog box appears where the user needs to click the “Next” button, and after that “I Accept”.
- When the terms of use of the program are accepted, a new window appears, where you need to click “Next” again.
- In the new dialog box, you need to uncheck the box indicating that the user agrees to install the free Google toolbar along with the program. Then you need to click the “Install” button.
- You need to wait until the utility is installed on your computer.
If local disk contains little space for the program, it will inform you about this in a new dialog box, then you need to click the “Cancel” button, clear the space and carry out the above steps again. If such a problem does not arise, just click “Finish” and get to work.
A program icon will appear on the desktop, with which you can log into Recuva. Now you can start restoring files. After opening the program, you need to click the “Next” button. A window appears in front of the user where you need to select the type of remote file. This could be a document, picture, music, etc. This action is provided for convenience, as well as to save time searching for the necessary material. If the file type is not known, you need to click the “Cancel” button.
The next step is to select the location from which the file was deleted. That is, if the necessary information has disappeared from the flash drive, you need to select Removable drive, if from drive C, you need to select drive C. After selecting the search location, you need to click “Analysis” - a button that is located right next to the location chosen by users for scanning.
After the program finishes, a list of files that can be restored will appear. Next to the required document, you need to check the box on the left and click the “Restore” button in the lower right corner. After recovery, the program will notify you about this.
Now all that remains is to open the place where the file is located and check if everything is in order.
No matter how sad it may sound, the program can not restore all files. There can be many reasons for this, but the most common are the following:
- the information was deleted from the computer too long ago;
- the file was damaged;
- The location of the file or its format is incorrectly specified.
If such a problem occurs, you can use another program.
The next most popular program among users is Magic Uneraser. This utility allows you to recover data of any format from a computer or removable storage device. The principle of operation of Magic Uneraser is almost the same as that of Recuva. After analysis, the user is provided with a list of folders that are located in a previously specified location (on removable media, Drive D, etc.).
Having selected a particular folder, the user has the opportunity to view its contents with just one click of the mouse. Both still existing files and those that were previously deleted will be displayed here. The utility marks the latter with a red cross for ease of studying the information. After reviewing the contents, you need to select the desired option and easily restore it.
Now, the recovered files need to be found on the computer. If the user remembers the name of the folder, there will be no problems. But it also happens that the place where information was stored “flew” out of my head. In such cases, you cannot do without the “Search” operation, which was mentioned above. By going to the Start menu and using the given option, you can easily find everything necessary files by their name.
The Magic Uneraser program has a number of features, which at the same time are its advantages:
- Using the utility, you can not only restore files, but also write them to removable media, and also upload via FTP.
- If during the first scan the program did not find the required document, you can additionally conduct a “Deep Analysis”. All information found during the search will be saved in the “Deep Analysis” folder.
- If the user sees that the program has found the desired file before the end of the scan, you can click the “Cancel” button and stop the search. All previously found files will be provided to the user for recovery.
When you find the desired file in the list, you just need to click the “Recover” button, which is located on the main panel. Using the Save Wizard, you can specify the location where the information will be located. This is very convenient, as it will allow you to independently choose where to store your files and make searching for data more convenient.
To recover several files from different folders at once, you need to use the “Recovery List Panel” and additionally mark several documents, pictures or records.
As you can see, the problem with losing files is not as bad as it might seem at first glance. Using clear and available programs, you can easily get rid of the problem.
Every day, by mistake, users delete many files they need and for some reason they cannot restore them or somehow return them. There are cases that even recovering files from the recycle bin is a rather difficult procedure for most users. The reason for all this is lack of interest and inattention. It would seem that everything is written in black and white, and even in the native language. That is why this article is focused on solving the question of how to recover deleted files. The most important thing is not to panic, pull yourself together and finish reading this article to the end, because if you follow the simple steps correctly, you can easily restore the information you need. First, you need to know that any time you delete files, they can be restored, but there are, of course, criteria under which they will not be restored.
Criteria under which deleted files can be recovered
If you have not completed the following steps, then your files can be recovered:
- deleted the local disk and did not try to restore it by creating another one;
- after cleaning a device, it no longer functions;
- the flash drive was no longer usable after the data was deleted;
- did not try to recover data using other methods;
- after removal, nothing else was done;
Only in these cases we 100% guarantee that the recovery of deleted files will be successful. But no one says that if you don’t follow these rules, you won’t be able to do anything, it’s just that in this case the result is not predictable.
Questions also often arise about what types of data can be recovered. No matter what file was deleted, it can be restored no matter what environment (NTFS or FAT32).
Recovering deleted files from the Recycle Bin
At standard deletion files All your files are saved in the Trash. In order to return them, you need to go to the “Trash” and click on the file you need right click mouse, then to the inscription “Restore”. After this procedure, the file you deleted will be restored to the location from which it was deleted.
Method for recovering files from the “Desktop”
As the title says, file recovery is carried out exclusively from the “Desktop”. To do this, you need to go to the “Users” folder – C:\Windows\Users – find the “Desktop” folder. Next, you need to go to its “Properties” by right-clicking on this folder – “Properties”.
After this, you need to go to the “ Previous versions file”, there you will see several folders called “Desktop”, and on the side of each there is a date by which you can roughly determine when the file was deleted and easily restore it.
Then you find the file you need and by pressing the following keys, you calmly restore everything: select the desired file - right-click - “Send” - and specify where.
It seems like an elementary method, but I bet that most users did not know about this. This is where the eternal saying comes into play: “Live forever, learn forever.”
DMDE Recovery Software
DMDE is powerful, free software, aimed at recovering deleted data from your PC or flash device. You can download it from the official website. Its capabilities also include restoring deleted partitions. The main advantage over other similar programs is that it does not require installation. You just need to download it, unzip it and use it with pleasure.
Here is a situation: you deleted files through the trash, or from the trash. For those who don't know, this is done by pressing DELETE + CTRL keys simultaneously. Therefore, you need to run the program. When launched, DMDE immediately asks for data when deleting, that is, the disk from which the data was deleted, and specify the partition (logical).
Thanks to a special algorithm of actions, this program easily recovers deleted files. Double click Click on the verified disk, thereby you will go into it. Then click “All found files”. After this, the search for deleted files is carried out. After analysis, by clicking on the desired file, you must click on the “Restore” button, then a menu will appear in front of you in which you will need to set the path, select the file again and click “OK”. It should be noted that this program can recover up to 4000 files in one session.
Simpler utilities for recovering deleted files
For this procedure in OC “Windows” a a large number of various applications, but not all of them are effective or easy to use. Now we will list the most reliable ones, according to our statistics: “Undelete Plus”, “PC Inspector File Recovery” and “Restoration”. You can also use “PhotoRec” - this program is especially good for restoring office documents and photographs. Undelete Plus is known for its clear interface and the presence of special filters for a more improved search. PC Inspector File Recovery is known for its special method of finding not only deleted files, but also damaged ones. Restoration is known for its affordability. To download files, click on their names.
All these programs were taken under one section, since they are all very accessible and easy to use. Regardless of who you are now - a beginner or a pro, you can easily master these programs. All of the above programs have the same finding algorithm. In order to find deleted files using the listed programs, you must first specify the drive or folder from which the files were deleted. Then the data scanning process will start, after which it will be known whether your files were found. Then you simply save it in a place convenient for you.
As we said, these processes are quite accessible to everyone. If you have your own interesting method of finding deleted files, you can write about it in the comments and we will definitely talk about it in the next article.
Don't know how to recover deleted files or digital documents? Do you want to recover accidentally deleted files and folders from the Recycle Bin? Don't know how to recover file information after formatting a logical partition with FAT or NTFS?
Recover files with the program
RS File Recovery
Use a program to recover deleted files. The program recovers not only accidentally deleted files, but also information lost after formatting the hard drive, memory card, USB flash drives etc. The program's extremely simple interface will allow you to restore the necessary files in a matter of minutes.
Download Registration Screenshots
A list of disks located on your computer and devices connected to it can be seen in the “my computer” tab. Highlighting required disk or a folder in the program Explorer tree, you can view their contents in the same way as you do in MS Windows Explorer.
Scan selected drive
Select the drive from which you want to recover files from the list of logical drives located on your computer and devices connected to it from which you want to recover files.
Double-click on the selected drive or, by right-clicking, select in context menu"Open" to start scanning logical drive or flash cards. The program will begin to analyze the selected disk and display its contents. This procedure will take a few seconds.
Note: If the program needs to scan large amounts of information, it may take longer.After analyzing the disk in the Explorer tree, the program will display a list of folders located on the selected disk. By selecting the required folder, you can view its contents. Deleted files and folders will be marked with a special red cross.
To see only deleted files and hide existing ones, use the “Filter” option (menu “View” - “Filter”).
To search for a deleted file in scan results, use special means RS File Recovery (file filter, search and view document).
In general, you need to find and select the files you want to recover and proceed with the actual recovery.
When you have found the files you need and decide to restore them, select them and click on the “Recover” button on the main panel or, by right-clicking, select “Recover” from the context menu. The Save Wizard will open.
If you need to recover several files from different folders, use the “Recovery List Panel”. To do this, simply drag the file to the Recovery List Panel or right-click and select “Add to Recovery” from the context menu. After you have prepared the necessary files, in the main menu of the program, select “File” - “Recover from list”. The Save Wizard will open.
Hi all! Probably, many of you have more than once found yourself in a rather unpleasant situation when someone, or you yourself, mistakenly deleted the necessary files on your computer or laptop. In this situation, all users have the same question in their heads: “How to recover deleted files?” I’ll tell you right away that if you suddenly don’t see the file you need in the usual place, then you shouldn’t panic and get upset. Perhaps not everything is so bad and lost data can be easily recovered. And we will consider in detail how to do this.
As I said above, don’t panic if you suddenly don’t find the files you need. It might be easy enough to restore them using standard means, since not all files are permanently deleted from the computer, which means there is a high probability of finding them and returning them to disk, for this we will consider two methods, which I will describe below.
How to recover deleted files from the Recycle Bin.
This method is the simplest and most harmless. By default, all files that the user deletes from the hard drive end up in temporary storage - the Recycle Bin. Essentially, this is a special folder that stores files deleted by the user. If you haven't changed Windows settings, then look for your files in the trash.
To restore files from the Recycle Bin, all you need to do is select the ones you need. In the window, go to the “Management” tab and click on the “Restore selected objects” button.
If you want to return all the files in the recycle bin, then click the “Restore all objects” button. 
Note! Large files, usually movies, folders with games, disk images, are deleted without being placed in the recycle bin, since in most cases they exceed the permissible volume allocated for it. This makes recovering large files quite problematic and sometimes an impossible task.
As a rule, beginners, due to inexperience, often delete various program shortcuts from the desktop that they think they do not need. But many people don’t know that if they delete the shortcut, the program itself will still remain on your computer’s hard drive.
To restore program shortcuts, you can do the following:
I would like to draw your attention to the fact that when using the system restore tool, you will not be able to restore deleted files, programs or games, but you will be able to return program shortcuts, as well as system settings that were before the changes were made. Let's look at an example of how to perform a restore. Windows systems 7 and get back deleted files.
We use the system restore function.
To use the system restore function, do the following:
In most cases, System Restore is useless, but sometimes you can use it to recover deleted shortcuts and system files and folders.
How to recover deleted files using third-party programs.
As a rule, standard tools for recovering deleted files do not bring the desired result and users have to resort to the help of third-party utilities that can recover lost data.
PhotoRec – we will return deleted files.
If you don’t yet know how to recover deleted files, then a free but quite functional utility called PhotoRec will come to the rescue. Judging by the name, the program should be able to restore photos, but its functionality allows you to work with many. Also, another advantage of this utility is that it does not require installation and is distributed in an archive, which you just need to unpack and run executable file. This allows you to run the program from external media.
You can download the program from the official website of the developer – www.cgsecurity.org 
After downloading, unpack the archive to any location and run the utility. The algorithm for working with the program is as follows:
- In the main window of the program, disks will be displayed in front of us that we can work with. Therefore, select the desired disk;
Note! The program can work with disk images in img format.
To start the program, click the “Search” button and wait for the scan results to complete. As a rule, you shouldn’t expect 100% results, but with the help of this utility there is a high probability of recovering lost files: photos, documents, audio recordings. If the result does not satisfy you, then let's look at another program.
How to recover deleted files using Recuva
Another one free utility, which can recover deleted files. You can also download it from the developers’ website – recuva.su/download. 
The program has a Russian-language interface, so any user can work with it.
Note! The program should be installed on a partition of the hard drive on which you do not need to restore files.
The principle of working with the program is as follows:
After the program scans, you will be shown all the detected files, which you will need to check off and click on the “Recover” button. Using this program, in most cases, photos, documents and other light files stored on the hard drive are recovered.
DMDE is a powerful file recovery tool.
Another free utility that has great potential and can very likely recover deleted files from a hard drive or flash drive. The program does not require installation, so you can always have it at hand if you carry it on a flash card or portable HDD. As usual, the utility can be downloaded from the developers’ official website - dmde.ru. Therefore, don’t waste time and download the archive with the program. 
The program interface is intuitive, but for beginners there is detailed guide, how to recover deleted files, which I recommend that you read before starting work. 
I will not describe in detail the entire process of the program in this article, since it is similar to the previous options. I can only say that the program copes with its task perfectly and can restore files even in completely hopeless situations.