How do you recover an accidentally deleted file?

I been doing IT for 20 years. I found a program called Recover My Files a few years ago. I have used it alot to recover files for friends and clients. They offer a trial, so you can download it and see if it finds your stuff. $70 to purchase it. Of course it will find all deleted files(as long as they weren't overwritten). It may find stuff you never hoped to see again, but better to find too much than not enough.

I always use the free version of recuva and it has never fail me.

https://www.piriform.com/recuva

one thing, once you realized you accidently deleted important files, you need to quit using the computer until you are ready to recover the files. You do not want to overwrite the space the files was located in.

another option is restoring the shadow copy microsoft windows makes. see the following for more info
http://www.howtogeek.com/129188/htg-explains-what-are-shadow-copies-and-how-can-i-use-them-to-copy-or-backup-locked-files/

There are several free programs out there that will work wonders on the easy to find and some do even find the hard to find.

omiller315 has good advice, don't use the computer until ready to recover the file, or at least limit any saves. Some programs will still recover if written over but the more written over the less chance you have of recovery.

Search out and read up on them and then download to a thumb drive (a download is a saved file) open and install to thumb or second drive (preferred to bootable disk).
Good hunting.

First - it is VERY important that nothing more gets written to the disk before attempting an undelete operation. When a file is deleted in Windows, the contents of the file are not deleted, but the disk space that the file occupies is marked as available and may be overwritten on the next write operation.

To recover the deleted file(s), you may use an undelete program. There is at least one program named undelete that does this - and a number of them are freeware. I have had good luck with a commercial program called FileSaver, but the version I got some time ago has trouble working with newer versions of Windows.

Go to another computer and Google for undelete utilities. Perhaps others on this list may have specific suggestions for programs. Good luck.

The sooner you do something about it, the better your chances. There are a number of apps to help you do this. A good free one from a reliable company is Recuva from Piriform.com. The interface is not quite as easy as one might wish (Norton used to have a great product with a great interface) -- however, if it is important enough you might buy the professional version of Recuva for a really cheap fee and get all the help you need.

Before you do anything, though, put your computer in sleep mode, if possible, and get your recovery app from another computer. Every time you reboot, there is a fair amount of file swapping. If files are written over the file you want, this really does create a problem, although there are companies that claim to be able to help for a couple of thousand dollars or so. Best bet, act quickly, find an app that will run from a stick and work from there.

Even better, if you're planning on being prepared, you can do any of the following: Create a bootable system on a memory stick or external drive or dual internal drive. Include deleted file recovery software on each of these. As soon as you lose the data, shut down, boot to one of these drives and work from there. You will be working on a stable environment where you won't be doing additional damage. The chance of recovering what you want is actually quite high.

Or invest in a good on-line backup program. Most companies keep copies of all versions of files created or edited over a three-month period, so you can find anything you need as long as you didn't wait three months to go looking for it, at which time there is little to help you, anyway.

Windows keeps a few days worth of EVERYTHING. As others have mentioned, Previous Versions will get it back. Just right-click on the folder that the file was contained in, and one of the menu choices will be "Restore previous versions..."

Select this choice and see how far back you can go. It is enabled by default in Windows 7 and up.

There are several applications, notably one called "Recuva" from Piriform, that can recover deleted files even after the trash has been emptied.

But this is difficult, because they usually find a whole LOT of deleted files that can be difficult to identify, and while some files it locates can be recovered, most cannot because their drive space has already been overwritten.

I hope this answers your "hypothetical" question, and you get your imaginary file back intact.

There is a wrong way and the right way to do this.

The wrong way having your data on 'C' drive or the same partition as windows. The deleted files will be easily overwritten and thus, very difficult to recover.

The windows "restore", if it works at all, will not restore data. I do not use it but if I remember correctly it restores only the program files, with plenty of renaming of files and folders. That is if, and a big IF the windows restore works. If it did work, the deleted files will become further unrecoverable. So DO NOT use it.

The right way is to have data on a partition that was different from the system files and simply stop using the computer, at least do not save any more files on the partition that has your data, until after recovery of deleted files. Use a good recovery program.

I have used Easus with success in all setups. Here is a link:
http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/free-data-recovery-software.htm

If unfortunately, your data resides on the "default" location, on your C drive, then try running the recovery program from a CD or external USB drive. I have never used it that way but the newer versions may be able to do so.

There are several ways to recover from the situation and everyone has already covered most of these. There is plenty of software (many free) that can recover the file "IF" the space that contained the file has not been already re-used. You can do a search for "undelete" but many commenters have already posted their favorites. As others have said, if you lose a file, STOP using your computer immediately to avoid the space being over-written.

The other way, would be going to the previous versions selection. I have not used that because I prefer the next selection.

Backup. If you have critical files you should be able to restore files from that. There are several issues when setting up a backup scheme. First, you have to consider what happens if you trash the file with bad data and don't realize it for a few days. So consider how many backup cycles that you are going to keep so make sure you have plenty of backup media. Use decent software to do the backup. It is not a matter of making the copies of your files. It is a matter of organizing them so you can restore your system.

Hi,

This is Joe.
My provider is also backup provider. I am not going to advertize for them because its not the place. But they do offer a secure script that backs up almost everything you want them to backup.
Although I am not a expert on "Cloud" my mail and everything else goes to cloud. When I need it, its there

My suggest is to contact me further on this solution.

joe dibenedetto

get recuva it is the best and it is free

Holy cow! What century do you live in? Does "Google it" have any meaning to you? You can find a million answers to your question and at least a 100 tutorials on YouTube. Plus, as others have mentioned.....every Windows OS since XP have made it easy to recover when things go bad. There are also many third party apps that can recover lost or deleted files.

Just click on Window's Recycle Bin, search for the file you want to recover, click restore and OK, and you get your file back in the directory it was deleted from. As others have said, the longer you wait, the more likely the data is to be overwritten by other saves.

I'm surprised no one mentioned the first guy on the unerase block, Peter Norton. You can get a copy of the Norton Utilities, including UnErase, here:

http://us.norton.com/norton-utilities?nortoncountry=us&om_sem_cid=hho_sem_sy:us:bng:en:e|kw0000356837|1430363179|c&country=US