Restoring Deleted Files

Sometimes, you will find that you have deleted a file unintentionally, and wish to have it back. All is not lost if this is the case. There is still a chance to recovered deleted files even if your recycle bin has been emptied, or been bypassed altogether in the deletion, as long you have deleted the file fairly recently.

Immediately after deletion, the file reference is removed by Windows, but the actual file remains. The section of the hard drive previously containing the file has been freed for overwriting, but that is space that is not immediately used. Because of this, after recent deletions the files remains and is recoverable, but the chance that the file has been overwritten becomes greater as more time passes. If your hard drive has been defragmented since deletion of the file, it has similarly probably been overwritten.

Luckily there are tools which can recover these deleted files which are not present in the recycle bin, but unluckily such programs do not accompany the Windows operating system when it is installed. A third party program which understands the way the computer stores files on a disk, is then needed to restore them. The hard drive's unassigned space will be read by the program, and the deleted files will be found there.

These software programs can restore files of many types, including video, music, image, document, and even compressed files, on computers as well as flash drives, digital cameras, and some mp3 players.

To avoid this problem altogether from now on, be sure to backup all files. A removable hard drive, CD, or flash drive are all options. Most do not back up their files until it is too late - try to be one of the people who are thinking ahead, and are thus prepared for any event requiring data recovery.